Elections 1996: Former CM Siddhartha Shankar Ray aims to regain foothold in West Bengal

It is almost nine in the morning and the ground-floor flat at Gorabazar in Behrampore town that serves as Congress(I) candidate Siddhartha Shankar Ray's campaign office comes alive with activity. The morning brings pressing demands with it, especially the steady flow of visitors. They are deftly handled by his wife Maya Ray, his de facto campaign manager and a former parliamentarian herself.

When not shouting instructions at party workers, she attends to every minute detail of Ray's needs: the hot food pack, a leather suitcase, biscuits, drinking water and his favourite shining-red Nagrai shoes. Then she tells reporters: "If you are accompanying us, just carry enough handkerchieves to protect yourself from the dust. It is incredible! Such is the state of development in 19 years of Left rule in the state."

Whether the majority of Behrampore's voters share her antipathy towards the Left Front (LF) is something her husband isn't sure of. But the demographic composition of the largely rural parliamentary constituency, with its significant Muslim population, appears to weigh in Ray's favour, according to many political observers. Even so, after touring the agricultural belt over the past fortnight, Ray has realised that the going may not be all that easy.

The Left Front has thrown its organisational might behind the Revolutionary Socialist Party nominee and Ray's main opponent Pramathes Mukherjee. The graffiti on the walls of houses on either side as he travels from Behrampore town to Ketugram say it all. Anti-Congress(I) slogans hark back to Ray's controversial record as chief minister of the state from 1972 to 1977, a period synonymous with anti-Naxalite terror, administrative ineptitude and electoral rigging.

In successive elections since the '70s, the Left Front's main anti-Congress(I) plank has been what it describes as Ray's "murderous rule in West Bengal". Now, with Ray himself in the fray, the LF's campaign has acquired an extra edge. Then, there are Naxalite factions with strong pockets of influence in the district which have declared opposition to Ray.

The 75-year-old Ray has been in and out of politics after the Congress(I) was ousted in 1977. He fought and lost the 1984 Lok Sabha election from Darjeeling as an Independent. In 1985 he contested, unsuccessfully, a by-election from Bolpur on a Congress(I) ticket. It was not until 1989 that his fortunes revived somewhat, when he was appointed Punjab Governor.

In 1992, Ray became India's ambassador in Washington, a post he went on to occupy for three and a half years. So what made him come back? "It's my passion for politics," says Ray. "Elections are in my blood. I cannot avoid them."

Whatever the reason, his daily routine now could not be more different from that of an ambassador. At the stroke of 9 a.m., dressed immaculately in white trousers and light saffron khadi shirt, Ray enters his campaign office. The crowd has swelled by now.

And Ray, ignoring preliminaries, points to the huge pile of election material gifted by a party worker and asks: "What am I going to do with this? Everything has to be accounted for...The (Election) Commission is very strict this time. Nothing doing. It is a winning seat for me and I am not going to take any chances."

It is precisely this consideration - that Behrampore may be a winning seat - that has brought Ray to this remote West Bengal district, backed as he is by Youth Congress(I) leader Mamata Banerjee. The two Congress(I) leaders' expectations of a turnaround in the party's electoral fortunes in Behrampore must have been based on the results of the 1994 by-elections, when a relatively weak Congress(I) nominee - Nurul Islam Chowdhury - made a strong showing against the LF candidate. Though he lost the contest, Chowdhury led in six of the seven assembly segments under the Behrampore parliamentary constituency.

But Ray's main problem lies within his party - a halt at Ketugram, an LF stronghold, brought him face to face with dissension at the grass-roots level. Hardly had his meeting with about 500 party workers begun when a local leader raised the issue of the distribution of campaign funds. Rival groups joined issue, shouted each other down and the speaker was pulled off the stage before Ray intervened.

"Stop there. Who are you? Are you Congressmen or CPI(M) men? ...I have come here not to dole out money, but to fight the elections. I have no money. If you are unwilling to work without money, feel free to leave."

What impresses people, however, is not so much his commanding tone as the tenacity and thoroughness with which Ray tours his constituency during the campaigning, seeking to reach every corner. Said a long-time resident of Behrampore town, where he has already completed one round of canvassing: "It looks as if (Ray) is fighting a civic poll, driving and walking down every street and talking to the voters, promising a drain here and a drinking water tap there."

Besides, what goes in Ray's favour is his glamorous political and professional career. A scion of 'Deshbandhu' Chittaranjan Das' family, Ray has been a barrister of repute with a thriving legal practice.

Initiated into politics by West Bengal's first chief minister Bidhan Chandra Roy in 1957, he was inducted into the state Cabinet after he won the assembly election. In 1971, he returned from the Raiganj Lok Sabha seat on a Congress ticket and joined the Union Cabinet under Indira Gandhi as education minister.

For all the blemishes on his record as chief minister, Ray is considered by many as the only political figure in the state who can match Chief Minister Jyoti Basu's stature. This image of Ray is bound to swing a section of voters in Behrampore, who haven't come across, in a long time, a charismatic Congress(I) candidate in the Lok Sabha elections.

And, as with the octogenarian Basu, this could well be Ray's last contest. A defeat will rob him of the prestige he has enjoyed all his life. And a win may see him through to a berth in the Union Cabinet should Rao come back to power. Small wonder then that yesterday's ambassador is sweating it out on the campaign trail in Behrampore.