The Muslim-dominated Malda district in north Bengal had been once a bastion of the Congress in the state. This is Rajya Sabha MP Mausam Benazir Noor’s home turf from where she began her political career with the grand old party in 2008.Noor, 46, quit the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) to return to the Congress Saturday, seven years after she left the party.Her “homecoming” to the Congress just three months ahead of the state Assembly elections not only comes at a crucial time for the party in decline, but also brings with it the remarkable political legacy of Noor’s family, especially in the Malda region, and its long-standing association with the Congress.Mausam Noor’s mother Rubi Noor was a four-time Congress MLA from Malda’s Sujapur seat. Her uncle Abu Barkat Ataur Ghani Khan Choudhury, popularly known as Barkatda, was a Congress stalwart, an eight-time MP from Malda and a Union minister in the governments led by Indira Gandhi as well as Rajiv Gandhi.With Mausam Noor back in the Congress fold, the party will have its eye on regaining its ground in the Malda region, where its electoral performance has been significant despite the TMC’s dominance across the state and the BJP’s emergence as the principal Opposition party.Accompanied by her cousin and Malda South Congress MP Isha Khan Choudhury, Noor was formally reinducted into the Congress at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters in Delhi, following which she said, “We have decided to strengthen the legacy of Barkat saheb. That can only be possible by staying in the Congress.”Commenting on her return to the party, a senior Congress leader said: “In Muslim-majority districts of Malda and Murshidabad, the Congress had a strong footing that they lost after the 2021 Assembly elections. Now, with Waqf law and many other issues, minorities in the Malda and Murshidabad districts are not happy with the TMC. (Noor’s return) will boost the Congress in these two districts.”Story continues below this adThe 2019 Lok Sabha election marked the first time that the Congress failed to win both the seats in the Malda district. In the 2016 Assembly polls, the Congress had won eight of the 13 seats in Malda, but in the 2021 polls, it drew a blank not only in this region but across the state. However, Isha Khan Choudhary’s win from Malda South in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls came as a boost for the Congress.Congress sources said Noor will be deployed in the Assembly election campaign as one of the party’s main faces, and may be fielded from the Sujapur seat. Her term in the Rajya Sabha is set to end in April 2026.A Congress insider said, “We are lacking major faces across the state, especially women. (Former MP) Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is no doubt a big leader but he is very much Murshidabad-centric. In that sense, Mausam Benazir Noor may emerge as a woman face of the Congress in the state.”Another senior Congress leader said, “We don’t know whether or not the Congress will ally with the Left in the polls this time. But Mausam will bolster the principle that the only enemy of the Congress is the BJP, and that may change the alliance scenario in the Assembly elections.”Mausam Noor’s journeyStory continues below this adBefore entering politics, Noor studied in Kolkata and received a law degree from Calcutta University in 2005. She joined active politics after her mother Rubi, then Sujapur MLA, died in 2008.Noor made her electoral debut in the 2009 bypoll for Sujapur as a Congress candidate, which she clinched. She then went on to win the Malda North seat in the Lok Sabha election that year on the party ticket.In 2011, Noor was appointed the West Bengal Youth Congress’s president. Two years later, she was named the Congress’s Malda district chief. In 2014, she was re-elected as an MP from her seat. She was considered to be part of a team of young Congress leaders close to Rahul Gandhi.Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Noor quit the Congress after her proposal for it to ally with the TMC was rejected by the party leadership. She then joined the TMC and contested the Malda North Lok Sabha seat on its ticket, but lost to the BJP’s Khagen Murmu, whom she had defeated in 2009 and 2014. In 2020, the TMC nominated her to the Rajya Sabha.