Kolkata: Rejinagar’s Mamata Trinamool Congress candidate, Rabiul Alam Chowdhury, first withdrew from next month’s bypoll and then reversed his decision — pledging to fight the election “even with 10 workers” — in the span of less than two hours on Saturday morning.The morning drama came a day after the Friday nomination withdrawal by the party’s Nandigram bypoll candidate, Sanchita Pradhan Dey, and two days after Election Commission ratified the loyalist faction’s new name (”Mamata All-India Trinamool Congress”) and new symbol (footballer).Chowdhury first told the media at 10.52 am that there were several factors behind his decision to quit the bypoll fray. “The party has a new symbol. We are unable to mobilise our workers. They are being pressured. Many have even been arrested. How are we supposed to fight? That is why we have decided to step aside,” he said outside his Beldanga party office.In close circles, however, Chowdhury had complained of “immense pressure and threats” to withdraw his nomination. He told party chief Mamata Banerjee of his decision, he said. “She (Didi) left it to me to decide,” he added.But at 12.30 pm, after a quick visit to Beldanga police station, Chowdhury made a U-turn. “I spoke to the Beldanga officer-in charge, who assured me of protection,” he said. “I will contest the election, if need be, with even 10 workers,” he said, adding: “I have reversed my decision to withdraw after speaking with Didi. Didi has reassured me. I belong to Didi’s party and I will do whatever she says.”“We will see what happens,” he said when asked about his earlier apprehensions regarding party workers’ security.Party seniors said Mamata called Chowdhury immediately after coming to know of his decision to quit and requested him not to leave the electoral battlefield. They spoke at length on the phone and she managed to convince Chowdhury not to step down.The drama in Rejinagar followed the party’s Nandigram candidate’s withdrawal from the fray on Friday and the arrest of Nandigram Congress candidate Milan Pradhan on charges dating back to 2007. That arrest occurred soon after the Mamata Trinamool made public its decision to support the Congress candidate once it became known that its own candidate (Pradhan Dey) was not in a position to fight the bypoll. Pradhan Dey had met Bengal CM Suvendu Adhikari on Thursday.Chowdhury, too, is facing a 2009 criminal case in court.The withdrawal-and-arrest drama in Rejinagar and Nandigram has been unprecedented, even by the standards of Bengal’s political volatility, and opposition parties have highlighted it as an example of the lengths BJP can go to ensure “democracy’s death in Bengal”.Mamata Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said “they” tried to repeat in Rejinagar what “they” did in Nandigram. “Our candidate did not quit despite immense pressure. But the moot point is that BJP is scared of even bypolls,” he added.The BJP countered this, asking why the Mamata Trinamool was giving tickets to reluctant candidates. Union minister of state Sukanta Majumdar questioned the Mamata Trinamool’s “mindset”: whether it wanted to fight or was simply “going through the motions”.BJP Rejinagar candidate Sakharav Sarkar accused the Mamata Trinamool of reducing the bypoll to “child’s play”. “People are least bothered. They want college, industry and roads, which only the BJP can deliver,” he added.The 66-year-old Chowdhury is a seasoned politician and a three-time MLA (on a Congress ticket in a 2013 bypoll and then on a Trinamool ticket in the 2016 and 2021 assembly elections). He lost the 2026 election after the Trinamool asked him to contest from Beldanga (his hometown) instead of Rejinagar.Ritabrata Banerjee’s Trinamool faction has nominated Safiuzzaman Sheikh, a local, for the Rejinagar bypoll. Humayun Kabir’s AJUP (his son, Golam Nabi Azad, is the candidate), the Congress, the CPM, the RSP and multiple Independents are in the fray.
