Adhir-PM meet on Bengali workers sets off speculation

NEW DELHI: West Bengal Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday and flagged incidents of violence against Bengali-speaking workers, especially in BJP-governed states.

However, the meeting, as the state poll campaign picks up in the state, set off political speculation, as Chowdhury is an influential grassroots leader from Murshidabad and shares with BJP his antipathy for CM Mamata Banerjee.




He won Lok Sabha election from Berhampore for five consecutive terms despite the gradual unravelling of Congress in the state, courtesy his personal political strength, before losing to TMC's Yusuf Pathan in 2024. A section of BJP sees him as a solid grassroots neta in a region, which has a large Muslim population, where their party has been on a weak footing despite emerging as the main challenger to TMC in the state.

Chowdhury, the leader of the Congress party in the last Lok Sabha, however, insisted that his meeting with Modi was focused on the plight of migrant Bengali labourers. They are facing attacks, especially in BJP-governed states, Chowdhury alleged, adding that he urged Modi to look into it.
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