Isha Khan Choudhury, a former Congress MLA and the only son of Malda South MP Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury aka Dalu, alleged on Saturday that political conspiracies were being hatched to malign the family of late Congress patriarch Barkat Ghani Khan Choudhury ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

The controversy started when Ram Sengupta, a Congress sympathiser and neighbour of the Khan Choudhury family in Kotowali, recently alleged that "Dalubabu was confined".

"He has been confined to his Calcutta quarters. Even we, his followers, are not allowed to speak to him over the phone...," Sengupta alleged, and further claimed that Congress workers believed the party would lose the Malda South seat if Dalubabu did not contest this time.

In 2019, Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury won the seat, defeating the BJP's Sreerupa Mitra Chaudhury by a slim margin of nearly 8,000 votes.

On Saturday, the MP's son Isha held a news meet at the Malda district Congress headquarters Hayat Bhavan to refute allegations that his father had been confined or isolated in any way.

"This is a very low allegation which has maligned the dignity of my family. We are successors of Barkat Ghani Khan. Such baseless allegations particularly ahead of the Lok Sabha elections might have a political vendetta. We will take legal steps against such humiliating and false allegations," Isha said in the presence of Congress district working president Kali Sadhan Roy and former Congress MLAs Bhupendranath Halder, Mostaque Alam and Mottakin Alam.

"I never claimed to be the Congress candidate from Malda South. Dalubabu recommended three names as probables, my name being at the top of the list. Dalubabu is not just my father, he is the district Congress president and the guardian of Congress workers. What he wants will prevail," Isha said.

The MP's son also claimed that Sengupta "might be a visitor to the Kotowali house like many others but was not a bona fide Congress worker".