After five years, Rahul gets set to begin Bengal campaign; Priyanka to follow suit

Rahul will kick off his campaign from Uttar Dinajpur before going to address rallies in Malda and Murshidabad, Congress sources said. These three Muslim-dominated districts, once known as the Congress strongholds, still have pockets of the party’s influence.

Rahul is likely to return to campaign in these districts as well as Purulia and some areas in North Bengal, where the Congress is hoping to win seats in the upcoming polls. The party had drawn a blank in the state in the 2021 Assembly elections when it had fought in alliance with the Left.

Priyanka may also campaign in these districts, although her schedule has yet to be finalised, Congress sources said.

A senior state Congress leader said, “Both Rahul and Priyanka would campaign in the Baharampur constituency where our heavyweight candidate Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is contesting.” The former Congress leader in the Lok Sabha and five-term MP, Chowdhury, 70, has returned to Bengal politics to contest the Assembly election from his home turf Baharampur after three decades.

The last time Rahul had hit the campaign trail in Bengal was in the previous elections, when he had begun from north Bengal on April 14, 2021. He had then described the BJP’s promise of ensuring a “Sonar Bangla (Golden Bengal)” as a “mirage”, alleging that the BJP was out to destroy the culture of Bengal. “Wherever the BJP goes, Narendra Modi goes, the RSS goes, they start spreading hatred and start dividing the people,” Rahul had then alleged while addressing a rally in Siliguri.

His 2021 campaign was “truncated” due to the Covid pandemic’s second wave.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Rahul Gandhi did not visit Bengal for campaigning. The Congress was then again contesting the polls in alignment with the Left. The party had then even won one seat with its leader Isha Khan Chowdhury winning from the Malda Dakshin parliamentary constituency.

In early 2024, however, Rahul had crossed Bengal in the course of his “Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra”, traversing some districts across northern and southern parts of Bengal.

Many in the Bengal Congress believe that the campaigning of Rahul and Priyanka would boost the party’s prospects in the elections, especially in districts like Murshidabad and Malda. The Congress’s election manifesto was released by AICC chief Mallikarjun Kharge in Kolkata last week.

Observers say Rahul may walk a tightrope during his Bengal campaign, keeping his guns trained on the BJP while refraining from mounting an all-out attack against the incumbent Mamata Banerjee-led TMC which is aiming for its fourth successive term. A major reason for such an approach, they say, could be the Congress’s “bigger goal of defeating the ruling BJP at the national level for which a unity of all Opposition parties is a key factor”.

A senior Congress leader however said, “This election would still be our acid test. We want to gauge our vote share in Bengal. So we are consolidating our forces where we still have strength. We feel that in some minority belts there is some resentment towards the TMC, and those votes would come to us rather than the Left. It will help us open our account this time.”