Adhir Chowdhury’s quiet comeback and a risky Bengal political gamble

After a hiatus of about a year, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the ‘Robin Hood of Murshidabad’, is back in the headlines.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, he lost his MP seat after more than two decades, defeated in his home turf by celebrity opponent Yusuf Pathan. But Adhir the politician never fades into oblivion.

The Congress leader who won five consecutive Lok Sabha terms from Berhampore in Murshidabad, but now stands almost as the last of the Mohicans of the Grand Old Party in West Bengal, is active and in the thick of things — just months before the state goes to Assembly polls.

Also read: Chowdhury meets PM Modi over 'attacks' on Bengali-speaking migrants, Matua concerns

Is the 69-year-old political veteran, with a long-standing enmity with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, acting with a plan? His recent raking up of the issue of attacks against Bengali migrant workers appears to suggest this.

Adhir meets PM

On December 30 last year, Adhir met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi to take up the matter, particularly in states ruled by the BJP.

Five days later, he met migrant workers from Bengal in Sambalpur in neighbouring Odisha. Juwel Rana, a 30-year-old Bengali-speaking migrant worker in Odisha, had been lynched on suspicion that he was a Bangladeshi infiltrator. Rana hailed from Murshidabad, Adhir’s home turf.

With not many allies around him currently, but the hunger to settle scores with his rival Mamata still intact, Adhir’s meeting with the "enemy’s enemy", Modi, is being seen to be significant.

Adhir expressed concern about “parallel policing” in some states where private individuals allegedly asked labourers from Bengal to produce identity proofs. He urged the law enforcement agencies to put an end to such practice. He is pursuing a softer path on the matter, compared to Mamata. His approach to the issue has been methodical, unlike Mamata’s meet-fire-with-fire stance.

Also read: ‘Neglected my sources of income, hard times ahead’: Adhir Chowdhury after loss in LS polls

While it is not unexpected for a grassroots leader such as Adhir to rush out when a migrant worker from his own place is lynched in another state, is it the only reason?

All by himself in Congress

Adhir is still one of the Congress’s major faces in Bengal. But, after the 2024 defeat to cricketer-turned-politician Yusuf Pathan, who was flown in by Mamata from Gujarat and fielded on a TMC ticket, Adhir has found himself increasingly alone.

The debacle also saw Adhir lose his post as the Congress's top leader in the Lok Sabha to Rahul Gandhi. Just a few months after those disappointments, Adhir also lost his position as the president of the Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee to Subhankar Sarkar, with whom he doesn’t share the best of ties.

Also read: ED raids at I-PAC spark political confrontation in West Bengal | Capital Beat

Adhir is also not known to be close to the ABA Ghani Khan Choudhary clan, another politically influential family from the Congress in Malda district, neighbouring Murshidabad. However, he would not be entirely unhappy with Mausam Noor, a two-time MP and one of the members of the Ghani Khan family, returning to the Congress from the TMC recently after a gap of seven years. Any form of loss for Mamata is invariably Adhir's win.

Conspicous by absence

Adhir's absence at Mausam's re-induction into the Congress on January 3 in New Delhi sparked speculation that he deliberately planned his visit to Sambalpur around the same time to give the party event a miss. However, at the press conference where Mausam joined the Congress, Ghulam Ahmad Mir, general secretary of the All India Congress Committee (in charge of West Bengal), said Adhir expressed regret for his absence.

Mausam had quit the Congress in 2019 to join the TMC when the high command turned down her proposal for an electoral alliance with Mamata's party for that year’s general elections, allegedly at Adhir’s behest. This happened despite several senior Congress leaders from Bengal backing Mausam’s idea.

Also read: ED raids I-PAC's premises in Kolkata, Mamata alleges theft of TMC’s voter data

With not many allies around him currently, but the hunger to settle scores with his rival Mamata still intact, Adhir’s meeting with the "enemy’s enemy", Modi, is being seen to be significant. Focusing on the BJP's anti-infiltrator drive while safeguarding Bengal’s own migrant workers is a smart ploy that the veteran could use.

Is he teaching the Congress a lesson?

By pointing out the lacunae in the Modi government’s hunt for ‘ghuspathiyas’ (intruders), Adhir is attempting to hit many birds with one stone. His rather straightforward ploy has the potential to hurt not just the TMC but even the Left and his own party.

The Left and Congress have hardly been as proactive as Adhir in taking up the plight of Bengali migrant workers with the top leadership. Visiting the spot where a worker was brutally murdered gives him brownie points.

It is not that the Congress leader is suddenly cozying up to Modi. The fact that he continues to live in a government-allotted bungalow in Delhi's Lutyen’s, and divides his time between Bengal and Delhi despite not being an MP, points to some privilege. Very few manage to retain their bunglows after being disqualified, including Rahul Gandhi.

Also read: Bangladesh unrest casts long shadow over 2026 West Bengal polls

One would not be surprised if Adhir met Modi without his party's knowledge (at least the Bengal unit of Congress said that it was unaware of it), disregarding the repercussions that it could have on Mamata-Congress ties. But then, the Grand Old Party has always had to deal with the ‘Adhir obstacle’ while dealing with the mercurial TMC supremo.

Congress, TMC plans

Adhir trying to regain political — and even electoral — relevance is hardly surprising, but what needs to be seen is how this affects the election plans of the Congress and TMC.

Mamata and the Congress are known to keep Assembly and Lok Sabha elections 'separate'. While they contest the state elections against each other, they are more willing to contest Lok Sabha elections together. In case they fail to arrive at a consensus, they engage in what is called a ‘friendly fight’.

The 2026 Bengal Assembly polls are not likely to be different. When Mausam returned to the Congress in Delhi, she said, “West Bengal needs a change. Let it begin with me.” She also resigned from the Rajya Sabha two days later, almost at the fag end of her term, which would conclude in April 2026.

Rise of Humayun Kabir

Adhir’s task has become more complicated with the rise of Humayun Kabir, suspended TMC MLA and founder of the new Janata Unnayan Party (JUP). Kabir recently laid the foundation of a replica of the Babri Mosque in Murshidabad and raised the political stakes in the district, which is demographically dominated by Muslims and adds to the headaches of Adhir’s secular politics.

Also read: West Bengal MLA Humayun Kabir launches new party after TMC suspension over Babri row

Ruthless strategies of polarisation and counter-polarisation are likely to be in play in Murshidabad in this election. Will Adhir gain in such a chaotic electoral scene?

Much water has flown under the bridge since he lost the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Over 18 months hence, new equations have emerged in Bengal’s politics. With Kabir as a new, distinct player, Mausam back in the Congress’s fold and Mamata remaining a strong political rival, the stakes are high for Adhir.

Can the leader, who hails from one of Bengal’s most celebrated historical bases, once ruled by the majestic Nawabs, regain his lost crown? Only time will tell.