Video Editor : Varun Sharma
The border district of Malda has been a Congress bastion for over five decades now.
The reason?
A man named Abu Barkat Ataur Ghani Khan Choudhury.
A Congress stalwart, Ghani Khan was first elected as MLA from Malda in 1952 and then went on to serve eight straight terms as MP. He even served as Railway Minister in Indira Gandhi’s Cabinet.
Ghani Khan is credited with bringing about unprecedented development in Malda – a district with a little over 51 percent Muslim population that is also plagued by other ills like fake currency rackets, opium trade, etc.
Even after Khan’s death in 2006, his legacy lives on in Malda.
However, members of his family who have now joined politics, have begun to move away from the Congress. The first blow came to the family in 2015 when his brother Abu Naser Khan Choudhury defected to the Trinamool.
The biggest blow, however, came right before these elections when the sitting two-time Congress MP from the Malda North seat, Mausam Noor, joined the Trinamool Congress.
Mausam is Ghani Khan’s niece, daughter of his sister Rubi Noor, who is now contesting against her cousin Isha Khan Choudhury of the Congress, son of Ghani Khan’s brother Abu Hasem.
Isha ventured into politics in 2011 when he won an MLA election from a constituency in Malda and then won again in 2016 from another constituency,
Both Mausam and Isha, as well as Isha’s father Abu Hasem who’s also contesting on a Congress ticket from Malda South, live together in Ghani Khan’s ancestral house, Kotwali.
The Quint travelled to Malda to catch up with both cousins and asked them some questions on Ghani Khan’s legacy, defections within the family and whether they’ll share a cup of tea after the elections!
In the process, we tried to find out who Malda will choose as Ghani Khan’s successor.
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