Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury (born 2 April 1956) is an Indian politician serving as the leader of the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British ...

in the

17th Lok Sabha The 17th Lok Sabha was formed by the members elected in the 2019 Indian general election. Elections, all across India, were conducted in seven phases from 11 April 2019 to 19 May 2019 by the Election Commission of India. Counting started offic ...

and the

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house ...

from Berhampore. He is also the current president of West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee following the demise of Somendra Nath Mitra.

Personal life

Chowdhury was born on 2 April 1956 to Niranjan and Saroja Bala Chowdhury at Berhampore in Murshidabad district,

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the four ...

. He studied at I.C. Institute in Berhampore. Chowdhury married Arpita Chowdhury on 15 September 1987. They had a daughter, Shreyashi, who died in October 2006. On 9 January 2019, Arpita died. He later married Atashi C Chowdhury.

Political career

Chowdhury joined the

party during the premiership of

Rajiv Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi (; 20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was an Indian politician who served as the sixth prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the 1984 assassination of his mother, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to bec ...

. In 1991, he contested the West Bengal Legislative Assembly election from Nabagram constituency. During the polling, he was chased by 300 supporters of the

Communist Party of India (Marxist) The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated as CPI(M)/CPIM/CPM) is a Marxist–Leninist communist political party in India. It is the largest communist party of India in terms of membership and electoral seats and one of the na ...

and held hostage by its candidate. Chowdhury lost by a margin of 1,401 votes. In 1996, he was elected from the same constituency. Chowdhury polled 76,852 votes and won by a margin of approximately 20,329 votes. Chowdhury contested the

1999 Indian general election General elections were held in India between 5 September and 3 October 1999, a few months after the Kargil War. Results were announced on 6 October 1999. The elections saw the National Democratic Alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata Party win ...

from Berhampore constituency. He won by a margin of 95,391 votes and defeated his nearest rival, the sitting MP Pramothes Mukherjee of Revolutionary Socialist Party. Following his success, he was made the Congress president for the Murshidabad district. Between 1999 and 2000, he served as a member of Committee on Information Technology, Railway Convention Committee and Committee to Review the Rate of Dividend Payable by the Railway Undertaking to the General Revenues. Between 2000 and 2004, he served as a member of Consultative Committee of the Ministry of External Affairs. In 2003, under Chowdhury's leadership, the Congress party won 23 out of 33 '' zilla parishad'' seats, 13 out of 26 ''

panchayat samiti Panchayat samiti is a rural local government (panchayat) body at the intermediate tehsil (taluka/mandal) level in India. It works for the villages of the tehsil that together are called a development block. It has been said to be the "panchayat ...

s'' and 104 out of 254 village councils in Murshidabad. On 28 October 2012 he was inducted in the Union Ministry under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as Minister of State for Railways. After taking charge as Minister of State for Railways, he has reviewed the statutes of safety, punctuality and passenger amenities with Board Members and inspected Sealdah, Howrah, Beharampur etc. railway stations to check adequacy of passenger amenities. He became the president of West Bengal Pradesh Congress on 10 February 2014.

Leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha

In June 2019, he was selected as Congress leader in Lok Sabha. According to a report in NDTV, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was given the job after the party failed to convince Rahul Gandhi. On 26 July 2019, Chowdhury was appointed the chairman of Seventeenth Lok Sabha Committee on Public Accounts. The Public Accounts Committee is now constituted every year under Rule 308 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha. After passing away of Somen Mitra, the then president of West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, on 9 September 2020, Chowdhury was appointed the president of West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee. On 12 January 2022, Congress leader in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury wrote to the chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, Anand Sharma, asking the committee to discuss the "Violative Software Application ' Tek Fog'", in their next meeting. On 28 July 2022, he referred to

Droupadi Murmu Droupadi Murmu (, born 20 June 1958) is an Indian politician who has been serving as the 15th president of India since 25 July 2022. She is the first person belonging to the tribal community and also the second woman after Pratibha Patil to hol ...

President of India The president of India ( IAST: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. Droupadi Mur ...

as "Rashtrapatni" instead of "Rashtrapati". Senior

BJP The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

leaders condemned the comment. Later, he apologized by writing a letter to Murmu on 29 July. In the letter he cited slipped tongue and not knowing

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of North India, northern, Central India, centr ...

properly the reason.

References

External links

*
Official biographical sketch in Parliament of India website (cache site)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chowdhury, Adhir Ranjan 1956 births Indian National Congress politicians from West Bengal Living people People from Murshidabad district India MPs 2004–2009 India MPs 2009–2014 Lok Sabha members from West Bengal India MPs 2014–2019 India MPs 1999–2004 India MPs 2019–present