All in the family

Arindam Sarkar

Politics of dynasty is not alien to Bengal. Barring one candidate all the rest, who were in the fray in the 16^th (2014) Lok Sabha elections, romped home successfully.

Leading the list of dynasty politics is the nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Trinamool Congress candidate Abhishek Banerjee comfortably won the Diamond Harbour parliamentary seat that fell vacant after Somen Mitra revolted against Mamata and crossed over to the Congress.

Abhijit Mukherjee, whose chances of winning the Jangipur parliamentary constituency in Murshidabad was considered to be very thin, by none other than the State Congress chief and Murshidabad strongman Adhir Chowdhury, scrapped through by a narrow margin and won the seat for the second consecutive time.

Abhijit Mukherjee is the son of President Pranab Mukherjee. He inherited the seat from his father who was a two-time MP of Jangipur. Pranab was the sitting MP of Jangipur before he became the President of India.

According to Adhir Chowdhury, there is always an element of acceptability because of the family background. However that effect wears off fast unless the candidate works hard to retain the parliamentary seat.

Rightly so, after former Union Congress Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi fell ill, his wife Deepa Dasmunsi contested from the Raiganj parliamentary seat in 2009 and won it. But in 2014, she lost the seat to the CPI(M).

Thanks to the development work done by the late Union Congress Minister ABA Ghani Khan Chowdhury for three decades in Malda, his MLA sister Ruby Noor reaped the benefit. Today his strong influence in the district is helping his niece Mausam Benazir Noor, who is the two-time MP of Malda North, and his brother AH Khan Chowdhury – the three-time MP of Malda South. Ghani Khan Chowdhury’s youngest brother AN Khan Chowdhury is Shujapur MLA.

Mausam Benazir Noor candidly said it couldn’t be denied that much of their family’s popularity and acceptance among the people in Malda is because of Ghani Khan Chowdhury. His name still matters. Ghani Khan Chowdhury died in 2006 but people still remember and respect him; and expect his family members to work like him.

Lastly, Trinamool Congress’ sway over East Midnapore district is being maintained by the shrewd politics and organisational skills of a father and son. Father is Contai MP Sisir Adhikari and the son is Tamluk MP Suvendu Adhikari. In 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha polls, both won their respective constituencies.

In 2009, Mamata Banerjee made Sisir Adhikari Union Minister of State for Rural Development. And appointed his son Suvendu as State Trinamool Youth Congress president. Suvendu is now the Trinamool general secretary and his father Sisir is Trinamool district president.

In fact, Mamata Banerjee has so much confidence on the capabilities of the father and son that she spent the least amount of time for campaigning in the two East Midnapore parliamentary constituencies in 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

“I am a devotee of Swami Vivekananda. We have fought terror to bring peace back into this district. Development is our only mantra,” said Suvendu, who rose like a meteor when he led the Trinamool to victory against the CPI(M) in the battle for Nandigram and neutralized the might of the expelled CPI(M) leader Lakshman Seth in the district.