Abhijit Mukherjee

Calcutta, Jan. 2: Pranab Mukherjee’s elder son Abhijit, 50, has told The Telegraph he plans to enter politics and would like to contest the Nalhati Assembly seat in this year’s elections.

“I have got my father’s approval and am mentally prepared. I may contest from Nalhati if the Congress workers there want me, because the constituency is in my home district, Birbhum,” he said over the phone from Delhi.

He wouldn’t mind giving up his job as general manager (personnel) with SAIL. “I know I have a tough decision to make in a few months. If the Congress high command asks me to contest, I shall resign from my government job.”

K. Keshava Rao, Congress general secretary in charge of Bengal, said Abhijit’s “induction into Congress politics is almost final”.

Abhijit is also in touch with Mamata Banerjee. “I sent New Year’s greetings to Mamatadi through a messenger. I shall personally meet her and request her to campaign for me,” he said.

Mamata was unavailable for comment but a Trinamul Congress general secretary said the party would back Abhijit in Nalhati if the Congress was allotted the seat.

Abhijit had passed his higher secondary in 1976 from the Ramakrishna Mission school in Rahara before graduating in mechanical engineering from Jadavpur University in 1984. He would be proud to follow in his father’s footsteps.

“Politics is in my blood. I got my inspiration from my grandfather who was jailed for 14 years (Kamada Kinkar Mukherjee was a freedom fighter and the Congress’s Birbhum district president),” he said.

“Besides, I’ve been watching my father for years as a politician. So if I get an opportunity to serve the people, I must seize it.”

From Nalhati to Newlands, this seems the season for sons following their fathers: Arjun Tendulkar was yesterday given nets at Cape Town by father Sachin.

Abhijit said that at a social event in Nalhati soon after last year’s Pujas, several Congress leaders and supporters had requested him to join politics and contest the seat.

Although the Forward Bloc won Nalhati in 2006 by 10,000 votes, Trinamul’s Satabdi Roy secured a lead of 11,000 from the segment when she won the Birbhum Lok Sabha seat last year.

In Bengal, the trend of younger members in politicians’ families joining the profession began when, after the death of A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhury, his brother A.H. Khan Chowdhury was elected from Malda. Ghani Khan’s niece Mausam Noor later won the Sujapur Assembly seat after mother Rubi Noor’s death. She is now the Malda North MP.

Although the CPM does not believe in political dynasties, housing minister Gautam Deb’s son Saptarshi and tourism minister Manab Mukherjee’s daughter Hiya were key figures in party student arm SFI and oversaw last year’s Presidency College elections.

Mamata has so far not groomed anyone from her family as her successor. She had last year aimed a dig at the “dynastic rule” in the Congress.

Abhijit said he had developed a “soft corner” for Mamata as far back as 1984 when he first heard about her from his father. That was shortly before Mamata rose to prominence by defeating Somnath Chatterjee from the Jadavpur Lok Sabha seat in December that year.

“My father told a family get-together before the 1984 elections that Mamata was a firebrand leader and was sure to emerge as a great leader in Bengal politics. He forecast she would defeat Chatterjee.”