Senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who faced defeat at the hands of cricketer-turned-politician Yusuf Pathan, the TMC candidate from West Bengal's Baharampur seat, discussed his future plans in an interview with the Indian Express. He also praised his opponent while dubbing him an "imported" candidate.
Talking about what led to his defeat, the Congress leader told the newspaper that the BJP's increasing popularity and TMC's "strange" campaigning contributed to his loss.
He said that TMC imported someone (Yusuf Pathan) from outside, who then started telling minorities to vote for "bhai" and not "dada." According to Adhir, "dada" means Hindu and "bhai" means Muslim.
"But I don’t have any complaints against anybody. Yusuf Pathan is a good man. He did not utter a word against me… He is a sportsman and fought like one… I tried, but our fight was against the ruling party," Indian Express quoted Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury as saying.
Adhir, who represented the seat for 25 years, faced defeat at the hands of Yusuf Pathan by a margin of 85,000 votes.
In a triangular contest, Yusuf Pathan received 524,516 votes, while Adhir Ranjan Choudhury secured 439,494 votes. The BJP candidate from the seat, Dr. Nirmal Kumar Saha, received 371,885 votes.
In West Bengal, the Congress party managed to win one seat, while Mamata Banerjee's party, TMC, restricted BJP to 12 seats and won 29 seats for itself.
