Diptiman Ghosh
28th August 2023 is the 119th birth anniversary of late Shri Atulya Ghosh. It has been my good fortune to know Atulya Ghosh from close quarters since 1958 when I was 11 years old. Maybe I am one of the last few standing who can make such a claim. From a very young age Atulyababu was drawn into the freedom movement drawing his inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi. He started out as a district leader in Hooghly. Young Atulya was 26 years old when he was General Secretary of Hooghly District Congress. Time and again Atulyababu courted arrest and faced lathi charge. During one such jail term when he was beaten and tortured in jail a police baton blinded him in one eye. His companions in jail were many leaders who later became communists and castigated him. After independence with the partition of Bengal the East Bengal wing of the Bengal Pradesh Congress lost its influence thereby leading to the ouster of the first Chief Minister of West Bengal Dr Prafulla Chandra Ghosh. The Hooghly branch of the West Bengal Congress gained predominance bringing Prafulla Chandra Sen and Atulya Ghosh into the front ranks of the Pradesh Congress. It was at the initiative and insistence of P C Sen and Atulya Ghosh that Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy became the second Chief Minister of West Bengal. Prafulla Chandra Sen became the number 2 in Dr Roy’s cabinet holding the Food & Agriculture portfolio.
With the advent of Dr B C Roy the influence of Atulya Ghosh on the West Bengal Prasdesh Congress increased manifold. He became General Secretary of the PCC, and between the period 1952 to 1967 held the post of PCC President twice. It is needless to mention that during the period 1952 to 1967 although many people became PCC Presidents Atulya Ghosh was de facto President and rest were all de jure. Towards the late 1950s Atulya Ghosh became an elected member of the Congress Working Committee of the AICC. It was through Atulyababu’s influence that AICC sessions were held in Kalyani in the 50s and Durgapur session in 1965. Atulyababu was thrice elected to the Lok Sabha from Asansol in 1952, 1957, and 1962. With the Chinese war debacle of 1962 the Congress Working Committee insisted on Krishna Menon’s ouster from the Union Cabinet. Atulya Ghosh spearheaded this movement and Nehru had to accede to the same. This did not endear Ghosh to Nehru, and Indira Gandhi did not forget this either.: Atulyababu’s one political blunder was the sacking of Ajoy Mukherjee from the WB cabinet under the Kamaraj Plan in 1963. This alienated the powerful Midnapore wing of the Congress Party. In 1966 the Bangla Congress was born led by the likes of Ajoy Mukherjee, Satish Samanta, and Sushil Dhara. The Machiavelilike brain behind this was a young Pranab Mukherjee. The Bangla Congress tied up with the CPI, Forward Bloc and others forming the Progressive United Left Front. In the 1967 Assembly elections the Congress got 127 seats in a house of 280. Had the Bangla Congress not been formed Congress would have won a comfortable majority. It was indeed a historic blunder. The history of West Bengal may have been different.
With the death of Nehru in May 1964 and installation of Lal Bahadur Shastri as PM Atulyababu’s power and influence reached its zenith. He earned the epithet of “Bangeswar”. With the death of Shastri in January 1966 the Congress Working Committee put its influence behind Indira Gandhi handing her the Prime Ministership. Those days the CWC had teeth and was the final decision maker. This was one time when Atulya Ghosh and Prafulla Sen were at loggerheads as Sen was totally against Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister.
In 1967 at the suggestion of many Atulyababu changed his constituency to Bankura from Asansol. He was betrayed by his own party men and he lost to an unknown CPI candidate by 30000 votes. Five assembly segments of Bankura were won by Congress candidates. Purabi Mukherjee was one of them. The likes of SS Ray, Tarun Kanti Ghosh, Jainal Abedin, etc started the beginnings of a revolt. Their opportunity came in the Congress split of 1969. The worst kind of epithets were hurled against him by people who owed their political career to him. It is a matter of regret that the Chhatra Parishad which was his creation turned against him and some of its members threatened him with physical assault. The wounded giant withdrew from the political arena. West Bengal Congress leaders who were his creation never even enquired about him. He took solace from the Bidhan Sishu Udyan. Unlike P C Sen who became a Janata Party MP in 1977 Atulya Ghosh bid adieu to active politics in 1971. He has been my family’s political benefactor. My grandfather Nalini Ranjan Ghosh became Lok Sabha member from Jalpaiguri in 1958 and 1962. My father became Lok Sabha member from Ghatal in 1967 and inducted into the Union Council of Ministers immediately thereafter. However I have to admit that subsequently Indira Gandhi nurtured my father’s future political career.I have to mention here my gratitude to the present PCC President Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. At his initiative the main auditorium of Bidhan Bhavan has been rechristened “Atulya Ghosh Hall”, and the Press room at Bidhan Bhavan rechristened “Prafulla Chandra Sen Hall”.