Why Mamata Banerjee fielded Yusuf Pathan in Adhir Ranjan's turf Baharampur?

Yusuf Pathan earned his first India cap in 2007 after his younger brother Irfan.

Former cricketer Yusuf Pathan will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on Trinamool Congress ticket from the west seat in Murshidabad district.

By fielding Pathan, the party aims at wresting the seat from the Congress which has held the seat under MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury since 1999. The Congress has not yet named the candidate for this seat. But it is expected that Chowdhury will be fielded from this seat. “I have always put up a fight against TMC chief Mamata Banerjee. The way she announced all names shows she is helping the BJP. My fight shall continue,” Chowdhury told News18.

Pathan’s popularity

Trinamool has never won this seat since it was formed in 1998. By fielding Pathan, Trinamool seeks to bank on his popularity to break the Congress stronghold in Baharampur.

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Born in Baroda to a Gujarati Pathan family in 1982, he earned his first India cap in 2007 after his younger brother Irfan. The Baroda-based cricketer, Pathan has played for India in 57 ODIs. He was also part of the 2007 T20 World Cup team and then the 2011 World Cup-winning team. However, he was part of the KKR IPL franchise which established the Bengal link. Fielding Pathan from Chowdhury's turf is being seen as the Trinamool's response to his repeated attacks on the party.

Political analyst Jayanta Ghoshal told The Print that Pathan added the star power to the Trinamool candidate list.

“If you see the entire list, there are sitting MLAs, sitting MPs, candidates who have been given tickets before. A few were seen fighting Vidhan Sabha polls and a few have fought 2019 polls, but when it comes to star power, that was Yusuf Pathan — the new and popular face for the TMC,” Ghoshal told ThePrint.

Minority face

According to reports, the Trinamool approached Pathan as it was looking for a “minority face” for the seat which comprises 52 percent of such voters. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the Trinamool brought down Chowdhury’s vote share from 50.5 percent in 2014 to 45.4 percent in Baharampur. Chowdhury won by 80,696 votes, down from 3.56 lakh votes in 2014. Also, Trinamool is hoping that the strong anti-incumbency sentiment could leave Chowdhury in a tough spot.

“Outsiders were nominated to the Rajya Sabha from Bengal. If Trinamool wanted to honour Yusuf Pathan, it should have sent him to the Rajya Sabha. If Mamata Banerjee had good intentions, she would have asked the (INDIA) alliance to get Yusuf Pathan a seat in Gujarat. But here he is selected as a candidate to polarise the common man and to help the BJP, so that Congress can be defeated,” said Chowdhury.
The Mamata Banerjee-led party had on March 10 announced candidates for all 42 seats in West Bengal. It also made it official that there is no alliance with the non-BJP parties in the state.