Mausam Noor rejoins Congress months before West Bengal Assembly elections

New Delhi: With just months left for West Bengal Assembly elections, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Mausam Noor on Saturday returned to Congress, amid indications that she may fight the polls from one of the seats in the family borough of Malda.

The 46-year-leader, whose Rajya Sabha terms ends this April, had been a two-term Lok Sabha MP from the Congress between 2009 and 2019 before she left for Trinamool Congress, upset over her then party not managing to enter into an alliance with the Mamata Banerjee-led party for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

She lost on a Trinamool ticket in 2019, the party brought her to Rajya Sabha in 2020.

Noor, who was Trinamool's Malda district president, belongs to the family of late ABA Ghani Khan Choudhury, an influential Congress figure in Malda, and her cousin Isha Khan Choudhury is Malda Dakshin MP.

"Our family decided we need to work together to take forward ABA Ghani Khan Choudhury's legacy in Congress. I will try my best to strengthen the Congress in Bengal," Noor told reporters after joining the party in the presence of General Secretaries Jairam Ramesh and Ghulam Ahmed Mir and West Bengal Congress president Subhankar Sarkar.

To queries on whether she would contest Assembly elections, she said she has not joined Congress by setting any conditions while recalling that she was given a lot of responsibilities, "some times too many", when she was in Congress.

Asked about Trinamool's remarks that Congress has taken such a step despite both being I.N.D.I.A partners, Ramesh shot back, "some people who were making all the wrong noises about the I.N.D.I.A bloc are remembering about I.N.D.I.A. It is good. We welcome it. We need to strengthen the I.N.D.I.A bloc."

Mir said common people in Bengal want Congress to emerge strong and the party is working on "strengthening the organisation in all 294 Assembly constituencies". To repeated questions about possible alliance with either Trinamool or the Left Front, Ramesh added, "a weak Congress means a weak alliance, a strong Congress means a strong alliance. TMC also has 'C' (Congress) in it."

About the absence of Adhir Ranjan Choudhary, a prominent leader from the Malda region, at the joining ceremony, Mir said he had to leave for Odisha earlier in the day for a pre-decided event.