Bishnu Rava’s son hopes to ride on father’s goodwill to win Tezpur for AGP

GUWAHATI: Asom Gana Parishad has taken a leap of faith by fielding Prithiraj Rava instead of Brindaban Goswami from Tezpur. Rava is the son of cultural icon and communist revolutionary Bishnu Prasad Rava, and AGP hopes that he will do well at the hustings riding on the aura of his late father.
Bishnu Rava had spent many years underground as a leader of Revolutionary Communist Party of India before joining Communist Party of India in 1950s.In 1967, he contested the assembly elections as an Independent and won. He was a lifelong socialist.
But Prithiraj is not his father and has no such ideological moorings. He has never negated communism or endorsed capitalism, but as a retired senior state government officer, he wants to develop tourism, culture and sports in the state. But as a consensus candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance, he will be attacked by the Left. Already, Left parties have launched a campaign against him among the workers, especially in the tea gardens of northern Assam.
Prithiraj has an answer for this. “Electoral politics and isms are two different things. My father contested elections as an Independent candidate on the call of cross sections of society, not from a particular group. I have contradictions in my mind whether I am a communist or a capitalist, but so far as elections are concerned, I am contesting at the request of the people,” Prithiraj told TOI on Thursday.
He believes ideological dogma helps no one. In this, he gave the example of his father who transformed from being an armed revolutionary of RCPI, unleashing terror among landlords of undivided Assam, to becoming a soft-hearted CPI comrade. The world has changed too, he said.
“Russia, China, Vietnam and all communist countries are no more only communists. We can call them reformed communists. Bishnu Prasad Rava too shifted from RCPI, when its strength was dwindling in the early 1950s, to CPI. But he changed his role again and fought elections as an Independent when people, irrespective of parties, wanted him as their legislator,” Prithiraj said.
Bishnu Rava had also parcelled out the lands he had inherited from his father, Sardar Bahadur Gopal Chandra Das, to the people. Prithiraj hopes people will still remember this benevolent act and support him in the polls.
Prithiraj has his own ideas about improving the tourism potential of Tezpur. As the town is used as a halt by tourists travelling onwards to Arunachal Pradesh, the Rava scion thinks its age-old theatres that once held audiences in thrall by staging dramas could be revived to recreate the magic.
But his grand plans notwithstanding, the going may not be very smooth for Prithiraj. AGP is perfectly aware of the threat Brindaban Goswami can pose as he is contesting as an Independent. He is the sitting MLA of Tezpur and quit the party after being denied a ticket. His loyalists have also followed him out of AGP.
But Prithiraj isn’t worried about this dissent. “Many old workers of AGP are coming to my side. Most importantly, BJP workers are giving full support to me. All I can say is that my direct fight will be with the Congress," he said.