The Indian Election Commission declared the results of the 18th Lok Sabha poll on Tuesday, June 4. With 293 seats won by the ruling alliance and 272 needed for a majority, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA is poised to form government for the third time in a row. The results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, however, came as a shocker for some bigwigs as they suffered shocking defeats. One of the biggest shockers came from West Bengal’s Baharampur district where the first-time contender Yusuf Pathan of the Trinamool Congress secured a comfortable victory over Congress veteran Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is a five-time sitting MP from the Baharampur constituency. The Congress leader won and ceased control of Baharampur in 1999, remaining not out for the last 25 year. But this year, for the first time ever, a Muslim candidate, Yusuf Pathan was pitted against him in his bastion and the former all-rounder, who has made his electoral debut this time and lacks any vision, or experience bowled him out.
The former Indian cricketer Yusuf Pathan beat the Congress veteran Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury from West Bengal’s Baharampur constituency by 85,022 votes.
Notably, in West Bengal’s Baharampur the Muslim voters are approximately 848,152 which is around 52% as per voter list analysis.
Having lost to the Trinamool’s Yusuf Pathan, the five-time Congress MP said he did the best he could under the circumstances. “I wish Mr Pathan the very best,” he said after the shocking defeat.
Interestingly, despite the alliance with the Trinamool Congress as part of the I.N.D.I. bloc, Congress veteran leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has remained one of the strongest critics of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s party.
Last month, in fact, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge snubbed Chowdhury for his vocal criticism of the Trinamool Congress, but Chowdhury insisted that he was continuing to do what he did to keep the party relevant.
“My fight is to keep Congress relevant in West Bengal. I cannot move away from it since I am a dedicated soldier of the party,” the veteran leader had said.
Interestingly, after the I.N.D.I Alliance had failed in West Bengal, TMC had claimed that Ranjan was the reason behind the collapse of alliance talks with Congress. Ranjan consistently attacked the TMC-led West Bengal government in his statements which, according to TMC, led to the talks falling flat. Congress reportedly sought 8-9 seats in West Bengal for the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections, but TMC was ready to give more than two seats, which Congress had won in the previous elections.
