Lok Sabha Elections 2024 | Poll Vault: Political courtesy or 'tacit understanding'?

The Baharampur Lok Sabha constituency in West Bengal witnessed a rare glimpse of political courtesy on Saturday – the last day of electioneering. Congress’s state unit chief and the party’s candidate, Adhir Chowdhury, was out on a ‘roadshow’ through a busy commercial area of the constituency, which sent him to the Lok Sabha five times since 1999.

Nirmal Kumar Saha, the BJP’s bet in the constituency, was also leading a similar rally that was coming from the other end.

The police personnel were on alert, anticipating that the sloganeering by the Congress and the BJP workers might lead to violent clashes. But when the two vehicles, having Chowdhury and Saha on board, crossed each other, the BJP candidate threw some flowers to his rival from the Congress. Chowdhury also reciprocated and greeted Saha with a smile and folded hands. The cops heaved a sigh of relief.

The leaders of the Trinamool Congress, which fielded cricketer Yusuf Pathan in the Baharampur LS constituency, however, did not miss the opportunity to reiterate what they have been alleging – that Chowdhury, in spite of being a leader of the Congress in the outgoing Lok Sabha, entered into a secret understanding with the BJP and sabotaged the bid to have an electoral understanding between the grand old party and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s party.