KOLKATA, April 21 -- The last time Congress veteran and former leader of the party in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, contested the assembly election, he was a fugitive and couldn't campaign openly for himself. That was in 1996.

"I was a fugitive back then. I couldn't even campaign for myself publicly as I was absconding to evade arrest. There was no social media at that time. I had to go to a studio in Kolkata and get my speech recorded on cassettes and distribute them in my constituency. They were played at various places in the constituency, sometimes at tea stalls and sometimes through loudspeakers tied to a tree or a lamppost," Chowdhury told the media in a recent interview.

Chowdhury was a suspect in the murder of a CPIM le...