Bengal: Women donate ₹11,000 for Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury's electoral campaign in Berhampore
In a heartwarming gesture, 11 women pooled in their meagre resources from their earnings to fund Congress state chief's electoral campaign. Chowdhury is standing from Berhampore constituency
As one of the world’s biggest democracies goes to the polls in less than two weeks, it’s the small heartwarming gestures that come under the spotlight.
Eleven women from a village in West Bengal's Murshidabad district got together to pool their meagre resources to collect ₹11,000 to fund the Lok Sabha election campaign of Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the head of the Congress party's state unit.
Chowdhury, who has been standing from Berhampore parliamentary constituency since 1999, is contesting again from the same area in the upcoming national elections.
The video of the women handing over the princely sum to the politician was shared by news agency ANI.
The donors, who are from Murshidabad's Ranagram village, have put together the funds from their household budgets, agricultural earnings, goat rearing, and have even donated their husband’s daily wages.
Popular leader
Chowdhury, who is the Congress party leader in the Lok Sabha, will contest against ex-cricketer Yusuf Pathan, the TMC candidate and BJP’s Nirmal Saha.
The 68-year-old Congress leader proved his popularity in his constituency when he notched up an impressive win in the 2019 general election. He managed to retain the Berhampore seat by a margin of 80,000 votes though his party was fighting to stay relevant in Bengal amid a saffron surge. In fact, the Congress had bagged just two seats in that election, one was won by Chowdhury in Berhampore and the other was Abu Hasem Khan Chowdhury, who won the Maldaha Dakshin seat.
Chowdhury, a staunch critic of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, was also the minister of state for railways during the UPA government from 2012 to 2014.
The Congress party has been claiming that the BJP-led central government is trying to use the Income Tax department to “cripple” the grand old party's electoral campaign ahead of the national elections starting from April 19.
In total, the IT department has asked the Congress to pay ₹3,567 crore in taxes. However, the Congress got a reprieve when the IT department informed the Supreme Court on April 1 that it would not take any “coercive” action against the Congress till July.
