AMN / WEB DESK

Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has appointed the party’s leader in Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury as the president of West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee (WBPCC).

The appointment came over a month after the former state party chief Somen Mitra passed away on July 30. The appointment of Chowdhury assumes significance ahead of the 2021 state Assembly polls in Bengal.

Chowdhury is one of two Congress leaders who won from West Bengal in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, as the party as a whole performed disastrously across the country.

He is a five-time MP from Berhampore in Murshidabad district, and a former member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly. The 64-year-old leader has earlier served as WBPCC president between February 2014 and September 2018.

In Parliament, besides being leader of the Congress in the Lower House, Chowdhury is chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee. He has previously served as Minister of Sate (MoS) for Railways in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s UPA-2 government from October 2012 to May 2014.