Those who know Sovan from the time he was a Youth Congress worker in the 1980s remember him as an earnest fellow. “He was not possessed of any electric charisma, was no orator either but he was forever rushing off to help the people of the neighborhood (Behala in southwest Calcutta),” says a veteran journalist. This made him popular. He contested the Calcutta Municipal Corporation elections for the first time in 1985 and won. At the time he was 22.
It is being said that Sovan’s intimacy with college teacher Baisakhi Banerjee has led to this political denouement. What Baisakhi is to Sovan is not our lookout, but one thing is obvious to all — he is experiencing a Kal Baisakhi. For one, he is being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation following the Narada expose of 2016. There is a continuing domestic discord with his wife of 22 years — he has filed for divorce — that is playing out in the media ad nauseum. And a close friendship, which to is unfolding in full public view. In a television interview, a bejeweled Baisakhi burst into tears when asked about the future of the man she refers to as “Bandhu” or friend.
From another TV square, the estranged wife, Ratna Chatterjee, continued to roll her eyes, respond to accusations and level her own. In a third TV square, the former mayor looked a tad forlorn. All he kept saying was this: “Those who are making Baisakhi Banerjee a scapegoat are doing great injustice.”
Though his politics were keen and he had a mind to help further his ambitions, Sovan’s heart derailed him time and again. It seems, sometimes in those early corporation days, Sovan fell hopelessly in love with a party worker. “And when she went ahead and married a really wealthy colleague, Sovan was inconsolable,” says another source. “I have never seen a grown man cry like that,” he adds.
It is heard that when there is a meeting or something shovon-baishaki always wear matching dresses to match their personality.
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