Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury

Some Lesser Known Facts About Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury

• Following his matriculation in 1970, he dropped out of school at the age of 15.

• In 1996, Mamata Banerjee, who was then a member of the INC, threatened to hang herself in public should Chowdhury be given a ticket to contest the assembly elections that year. However, not only was Chowdhury allotted a ticket to contest the elections despite the fact that he was absconding, he won the elections from the Nabagram Assembly constituency.

• Chowdhury has a keen interest in science and he actively works toward promoting scientific innovations. Apart from that, he also strives for the preservation of literature and customary folk arts. He has participated various in Bangla Cultural activities held around the country to showcase Bangla culture.

• Besides having a voracious appetite for reading, Adhir is also a writer and has published books in Bengali and English including Between Two Silences (English),  Aguner Rangneel (Bengali), The History of Murshidabad District Congress – 1885 – 2010, and 125, Bochorer Alokey Murshidabad Zila Congress (Bengali).

• In 2022, Adhir Ranjan appealed to Anand Sharma, the chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, to discuss the software application ‘Tek Fog,’ in their next meeting. The violative software application Tek Fog was used by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to artificially inflate the popularity of the party, harass its critics and manipulate public perceptions at scale across major social media platforms. It came under the radar when a whistleblower alerted the independent Indian news publication The Wire about it after which The Wire conducted a two-year investigation and published its findings in January 2022.

• On 20 September 2023, Adhir Ranjan raised an important issue, stating that the newly distributed copies of the Constitution lacked the terms ‘Socialist’ and ‘Secular.’ These copies were handed out to the Members of Parliament on the first day of proceedings at the new Parliament building on 19 September 2023. ^[18]Deccan Herald In an interview, Adhit elaborated on this, saying,
  

  The new copies of the Constitution that were given to us…the one we held in our hands and entered [the new Parliament building], its Preamble does not have the words ‘socialist, secular.”

  In the interview, Adhir also expressed concerns about the BJP government’s intentions regarding this issue. He emphasised the seriousness of the matter and indicated that other Members of Parliament would join in raising this matter.