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Updated: Jun 17, 2019 21:27 IST

Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, a feisty leader from West Bengal, came in for a bit of praise from Prime Minister Narendra Modi who called him a “fighter” after the all-party meeting here on Sunday ahead of the start of the 17th Lok Sabha.

Chowdhury, who is a strong detractor of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, was called by the prime minister at the end of the meeting which he had attended as one of the Congress representatives.

Modi, who was to leave the conference room, called Choudhury and patted him on his back telling others, including Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma, that he is a “fighter”.

Reacting to Modi’s remark, Chowdhury told ANI, “I greeted the Prime Minister. He then patted me on the back and said before everyone that Adhir is a fighter. I felt happy.”

“I don’t have any personal enmity with anyone. We are people’s representatives and they (BJP) are also people’s representatives. We will raise our voices, they will also do. We are going to speak in Parliament, not fight in a war.”

Chowdhury, who has been representing Berhampore in West Bengal since 1999, retained the seat in this year’s Lok Sabha elections. He had defeated TMC’s Apurba Sarkar by over 80,000 votes.

Amid a tug of war between TMC and BJP, which made deep inroads into the state, Chowdhury is the lone Congress MP from West Bengal, which saw a spurt in political violence during the general elections.

Although polls have ended, violence still continues to take place in the state, with both sides trading blame on each other.

(The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text, only the headline has been changed)