Cong gets a Robin Hood in RSP citadel8217;s Godfather

Neither do the charges against Choudhury. The 8220;Dada of Berhampore8221; owns a transport business but is known to run a large syndicate that awards contracts for different government jobs to people owing allegiance to him. He is also accused of several crimes, including murder. In fact, just before the state Assembly elections in 1996, then Youth Congress president Mamata Banerjee had staged her famous suicide attempt at a rally in south Calcutta in protestagainst the allotment of a ticket to an 8220;anti-social8221; like Choudhury.

The latter ultimately retained the ticket and won the elections, which were plagued by violence. Not only that, in the Berhampore municipal elections last year, he carried the Congress to a history of sorts, the party making a clean sweep of all the 23 seats.

Now, the Congress 8212; which won just one Lok Sabha seat from West Bengal last time 8212; is hoping Choudhury will help it cross this election barrier too. Berhampore is considered an RSP pocketborough. Party stalwart Tridib Choudhury won it from 1952 till 1984, when the Congress bagged the seat for the first time with a narrow margin of 4,000 votes. However, in the very next election, the RSP wrested the seat back. But this time, as local Congress worker Swapan Trivedi says, Choudhury8217;s 8220;dynamic leadership8221; has rejuvenated the Congress.

So much so that Choudhury8217;s Berhampore is among the few seats in West Bengal which the Congress hopes to win. The others are Malda, Raygunj andCalcutta North-West, all of whom feature Congress heavyweights like WBPCC chief A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chaudhuri, PCC working president Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi and former state chief minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray. Incidentally, it was under Ray8217;s reign that Choudhury, then a Naxalite, had been detained under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act MISA from 1972 to 1977.

But all that is in the past. In meeting after meeting, the Dada of Berhampore now declares: 8220;They have branded me an anti-social, a criminal. But I am like the Krishna of Mahabharata. I punish those who commit wrongs, and stand by those who fall into trouble.8221; J. Jahan, a party worker, points out that in Berhampore, no case of sexual harassment is reported anywhere. 8220;Dada is very strict about it. He will beat up even a party worker if he finds him involved in crime against women,8221; he says.

This is what gives Choudhury his Robin Hood image. The alleged mafia don has stuck with Berhampore through thick and thin. During the devastatingfloods last year, he had set up langars where free food is distributed and taken up massive relief work. Says Munabbar Hussain of Bharatpore village in the constituency: 8220;We survived because of Dada.8221; Visit Choudhury8217;s house in the morning on any given day and you will find a string of visitors seeking favours and help. He rarely refuses, using both money and muscle power to bail out those in trouble.

As this reporter accompanies 8220;the Don8221; in his open jeep through the constituency, people line up on both sides of the road to genuflect. 8220;They look up to me if they are in trouble,8221; Choudhury explains. In Chuanpur village, an old man comes to meet the Dada8217;s convoy with his handicapped daughter and a prescription for medicines. 8220;Take them in my car and tell somebody to buy those medicines,8221; Choudhury orders one of his men. The old man blesses him.

8220;It8217;s these blessings that will get me this seat,8221; Choudhury asserts. A reminder that Congress president Sonia Gandhi8217;s visit to his constituency hadbeen cancelled does not disturb his composure. 8220;I don8217;t care whether any Congress leader comes here for campaigning. I don8217;t need anyone in fact,8221; he claims.

Everybody in this town situated on the banks of the Ganga whom this reporter spoke to attests to that, including the BJP candidate from the constituency, Colonel Sabyasachi Bagchi. The latter had lost the last Lok Sabha elections to the RSP8217;s Pramatesh Mukherjee by almost 2 lakh votes.

However, Bagchi also asserts that the Robin Hood image may boomerang on Choudhury. 8220;People don8217;t want to antagonise him, so they will tell him that they will vote for him. But at the polling booths, the story may be different,8221; he says. RSP Murshidabad District Committee secretary Asish Roy Choudhury asserts this too. 8220;In the villages, he is a nobody,8221; says Ashish. 8220;We will again scrape through.8221;