Irrespective of the electoral outcome at the end of this uncharitable election summer, what must find at least a mention in the pages of Bengal’s colourful and complex political history is the fight to the finish by a fearless, indefatigable 68-year-old in a fedora.

Having given it his all in five successive general elections at Baharampur — he is yet to taste defeat in 25 years — Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury would have been allowed some war-weariness. But instead, he remains true to his name (adhir means impatient in Bengali) and could put teenagers to shame in the way he has gone about pulling out all the stops to ensure his sixth win.

The Congress’s Bengal legatus legionis has been toiling 16-plus hours daily to defend his citadel — 40km from the historic 1757 battlefield of Plassey — eager to ensure May 13 does not become his Waterloo.

“I will either win, which I believe I should, or quit politics,” said the maverick — admirers say flamboyant; critics, eccentric — whose political life began as a Naxalism-inspired teenager in high school. Although he quit the Gorabazar Iswar Chandra Institution in 1970, after Class IX, the autodidact will surprise doubters with his knowledge of economics, history, literature, pop culture, and football — besides parliamentary democracy, of course.

“If I do win, Mamata Banerjee has to admit that it’s her defeat,” added the Bengal chief minister’s bete noire, before leaving his Cossimbazar Raj residence for yet another day of rallies, road shows and door-to-door campaign. “The Congress will win in Behrampore and Jangipur, and the CPM in Murshidabad.”

For months, Chowdhury and Mamata have been accusing each other of being the wrecker-in-chief of a seat-sharing deal between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress.

Although he had notably been a thorn in Narendra Modi’s side as the leader of the Congress in the 17th Lok Sabha, slanderous allegations from Mamata, of Chowdhury being a Sangh parivar agent, continue flowing thick and fast. Determined to keep his political credibility as unsullied as the pastel-shaded linen shirts he is inordinately fond of, he swats away with signature scorn the suggestion that anybody other than Mamata was responsible for the breakdown of the INDIA bloc in Bengal.

But the fight in Baharampur, where the Congress won none of the seven Assembly segments in 2021, sure is difficult for the one his admirers call “Robin Hood” (his detractors, the “Nawab of Murshidabad”).

In a first, Chowdhury is up against a formidable foe in the form of a pious Muslim: Trinamool’s Yusuf Pathan, the former all-rounder who was part of India squads that won the 2007 T20 World Cup and the 2011 ODI World Cup. The Baharampur electorate has 60 per cent Muslims.

Mamata has entrusted the responsibility of ensuring victory to former Chowdhury protégé Apurba “David” Sarkar, who contested unsuccessfully for Trinamool in 2019 and is a four-time Kandi MLA.

“He (Chowdhury) bores everyone with trite Plassey references… likes to picture himself as Siraj ud-Daulah and his rivals as Mir Jafar or Robert Clive. But look at this Biblically. David will eventually fell the Goliath,” he said, underscoring how he had dragged Chowdhury’s victory margin from 3.56 lakh in 2014 down to less than 81,000 in 2019. In 2021, the seven Assembly segments yielded the Congress a deficit of over 2.5 lakh votes.

Under Chowdhury as the state president, in a first since Independence, the Congress has zero seats in the Assembly. He is often blamed for having reduced the Grand Old Party — the indubitable principal Opposition in Bengal till Mamata formed her breakaway party in 1998 — to a “MaMu” party (implying that it does not exist beyond Malda and Murshidabad).

So why did he remain so adamant against improving his winnability through an accord with Mamata, and so bent on remaining partners with the CPM that he once virulently opposed?

“The CPM’s harmaad (hooligan) hordes are now the Trinamool’s damaad (sons-in-law) army…. Besides, the way Mamata tried to wipe out the Congress in Bengal, after ascending to power as our ally in 2011, I cannot imagine ever relying on her again,” he said.

“Unlike her, there isn’t the slightest doubt in the Left’s secular credentials, or in its sincerity in the fight against the saffron regime,” added the principal architect of the Congress-Left truck in Bengal. “In this alliance, the Congress will win seven Bengal seats.”

As a result, barely 10km away, in the historic plains of Murshidabad, a beaming Chowdhury has been seen sporting a hammer-sickle-star uttoriyo, and marching hand-in-hand (literally) with CPM state secretary Md. Salim, who is contesting from the neighbouring constituency.

Salim, whose seat voted on May 7, is the other foremost (non-BJP) anti-Mamata face in Bengal and has a lot riding on the electoral outcome.

The 66-year-old politburo member remains confident against Trinamool’s Abu Taher Khan, who snatched the seat from the Left in 2019.

“I haven’t seen cause for pessimism,” he said on the sidelines of a campaign exercise near the 18th century Katra Masjid in the Kila Nizamat area, from where undivided Bengal (extending from Bihar’s Hajipur in the west to Myanmar’s Mrauk U in the east) was ruled by Nawabs till British colonisation.

CPM insiders admit to internal assessments that Salim’s edge (if any) came primarily from being a Muslim face who is equally anti-BJP and anti-Trinamool in a constituency with 72 per cent Muslims.

“Salimda should have fared well in Domkal, Jalangi and (Nadia’s) Karimpur. If the Congress votes in Hariharpara and Raninagar were adequately transferred, he has a serious chance,” said a CPM district committee member. “If there is any seat we can actually win in Bengal this time, this is it.”

There is perhaps only one conviction that binds all three INDIA constituents: their assessment of the BJP’s chances in the district.

“Both (BJP nominees) Gouri Shankar Ghosh (in Murshidabad) and Nirmal Kumar Saha (in Baharampur) will finish a distant third,” said Trinamool’s David, virtually echoing his former mentor in the Congress.

“The BJP is going to embarrass itself here. It only has polarisation in its armoury,” said the CPM’s former Murshidabad MP Badaruddoza Khan.