Can Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury Anchor a ‘Rudderless’ Congress Party?

Political analysts, commentators and scholars of a certain vintage are reliving a certain day in 1995, when former President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, at that time President of the SAARC Council of Ministers Conference, was visiting a nondescript village in Bengal’s Murshidabad district, a Congress stronghold, to launch a Model Village programme.

A stage had been set up in a playground. In attendance was a smattering of senior SAARC and Government of India bureaucrats, Mukherjee, and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, aka the ‘Robinhood of Murshidabad’, an area known for its 70 percent Muslim and backward community voters.

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