Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury

Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury joined the Indian National Congress (INC) during the premiership of Rajiv Gandhi. He is a member of the 17th Lok Sabha of India and represents the Berhampore constituency of West Bengal. He started his political journey in 1996 by becoming an MLA.

In 1999, he became a Member of Parliament. Adhir, the District Congress President, was the only person credited for the party's victory in the Zila Parishad elections and also in elections to various municipalities in Murshidabad district. To everyone's surprise, Chowdhury won the Berhampore Lok Sabha seat when nobody was expecting him to win the seat, as it had not been won by the Congress since 1951 and was an RSP stronghold. He has won the Berhampore Lok Sabha seat consecutively since 1999.

He also took the initiative in the election campaigns of Pranab Mukherjee from the Jangipur parliamentary constituency in Murshidabad district in 2004 and 2009. He was inducted into the Union Ministry under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as Minister of State for Railways on 28 October 2012. He became the president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress on 10 February 2014. In June 2019, he was selected as the Congress leader in the Lok Sabha.

After the passing away of Somen Mitra, the then president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, on 9 September 2020, Chowdhury was appointed as the president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee.

In the 2024 general election, he again ran from Baharampur but lost to Yusuf Pathan of the All India Trinamool Congress. As 2025 sees, he is still an influential Congress leader in West Bengal and thus a key voice within the party’s national leadership, but he is not an MP in the current ​‍​‌‍​‍‌​‍​‌‍​‍‌term.