The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday named Ananta Rai, who heads a faction of the Greater Cooch Behar Peoples’ Association (GCPA), as its Rajya Sabha candidate from West Bengal.
GCPA has been demanding that a separate state of Greater Cooch Behar be carved out of West Bengal. It bestowed the title Maharaj (King) on Rai in 1998.
Rai, who is in his mid-60s and claims to be a descendant of the Koch-Rajbangshi dynasty, is said to have considerable influence among around two million Koch-Rajbangshi voters in Assam and West Bengal’s seven districts.
The Rajbangshi community is the largest Scheduled Caste group of West Bengal, accounting for around 30% of the population in north Bengal.
The BJP made inroads in north Bengal in the 2019 national polls when it won 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. It held on its stronghold in the 2021 West Bengal assembly polls.
Rai refused to comment on the Greater Cooch Behar demand after his Rajya Sabha nomination. “I am happy. Everything has its own time. I will talk later,” he said
{{/usCountry}}Rai refused to comment on the Greater Cooch Behar demand after his Rajya Sabha nomination. “I am happy. Everything has its own time. I will talk later,” he said
{{/usCountry}}GCPA has maintained the inclusion of Cooch Behar in West Bengal was a violation of the treaty signed in August 1949 between the Union government and Maharaja Jagaddipendra Naryan of the Koch-Rajbangshi dynasty that ruled the region before independence.
In 2021, Union home minister Amit Shah met Rai, who lives in a palatial house at Satipur in Assam’s Chirang, ahead of the West Bengal and Assam polls.