Kolkata, June 5 A sharp division in Hindu votes against a consolidation of Muslim voters at Baharampur Lok Sabha constituency in Murshidabad District of West Bengal led to the surprise defeat of state Congress President and five-time party MP from there, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
As per an analysis by the Congress and in Chowdhury’s own words, he paid the price for distancing himself from the politics of religion.
“On one hand there was a division in Hindu votes and on the other there was a consolidation of Muslim votes. You can say that I was caught in the middle, since I did not make any conscious attempt to project myself either as a Hindu or a Muslim,” Chowdhury said.
In fact, the statistics of the results of Baharampur Lok Sabha constituency prove Chowdhury’s point to an extent.
This time Trinamool Congress candidate from Baharampur, former cricketer Yusuf Pathan emerged as the surprise victor, bagging 5,24,516 votes.
Chowdhury came second bagging a total of 4,39,494 votes.
Now while the winning margin was just 85,022 votes, the BJP candidate Dr Nirmal Chandra Saha got 3,71,886 votes.
Political observers are of the opinion that Saha made a substantial dent in the erstwhile dedicated Hindu vote bank of Chowdhury and Pathan enjoyed the consolidation of Muslim votes.
They say that there is another factor that made the fight stickier for Chowdhury, and that is the Congress high command distancing itself from him from the beginning.
Neither the Congress’ National President Mallikarjun Kharge nor popular Congress leaders like Rahul Gandhi or Priyanka Gandhi came to Bengal even once to campaign for Chowdhury.
Trinamool Congress supremo and the West Bengal Chief Minister took advantage of that and started a campaign describing Chowdhury as a “clandestine agent of the BJP” under the guise of a “Congress leader”.
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