Srijan Bhattacharya

Srijan Bhattacharya (or Bhattacharyya, born 12 May 1993) is an Indian political leader who served as the West Bengal State Secretary of the Students' Federation of India (SFI). He is also a Member of the West Bengal State Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He was contesting the 2024 Indian General Election as a CPI(M) candidate from the Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency, but lost to Saayoni Ghosh of TMC and Dr. Anirban Ganguly of BJP

Personal life
Srijan Bhattacharya, son of Dr. Arindam Bhattacharya and Lt. Suranjana Bhattacharya, is a leftist political activist coming from Kolkata, West Bengal. He was a student of South Point High School and Nava Nalanda High school. He completed his Bachelor and Masters degrees as a student of History from Jadavpur University (Batch of 2012–2017). Srijan's parents were both leftist student activists, and his grandfather Achintya Bhattacharya was a communist leader of Assam, one of the earliest Indian communists who left the CPI in order to form the CPI(M) during the CPI-CPI(M) split. Srijan got married in November 2020. Besides being a political activist, he has contributed as a songwriter and musician in a musical band called Ebong Koyekjon, who released an album with 9 original compositions in 2014. Apart from this, he has freelanced as a lyricist and composer in quite a few independent musical projects as well. 'পরিত্যক্ত ক্যারাভ্যানের গান' (Melodies of a Deserted Caravan), a book of poems and short stories written by Srijan was published by Shalidhan Prakashan in the International Kolkata Book Fair 2021. He has a lot of articles and poems published in different newspapers, magazines and books. He is passionate about football, and has interests in trekking and travelling.

Political life
Srijan joined the SFI in 2007 as a school student, and currently is acting as the State Secretary of SFI West Bengal State Committee (17 December 2017 - present) along with PratikUr Rahaman, the State President of SFI West bengal State Committee. He is also the All India Joint Secretary of the SFI (2nd Novembor, 2018 - present). He was elected as Asst. Secretary of the SFI Kolkata District Committee in 2015 and in the same year was elected as a member of the SFI West Bengal State Committee. in 2019, he became a member of the CPI(M) West Bengal State Committee. He was elected as the youngest delegate to participate in the 22nd Party Congress of the CPI(M) that was held at Hyderabad on April,2018.

He contested the West Bengal Legislative Assembly Elections 2021 from the high-profile Assembly Constituency of Singur (A.C. 188) as a candidate of the CPI(M) and lost to Becharam Manna of the AITC, ending up as third with 14.3% of the total vote shares. Srijan has been one of the better known young faces of the SFI and the CPI(M) of West Bengal in recent times. During his tenure as a student leader, he has led multiple movements against the TMC government in West Bengal and the BJP Government in Centre.

In 2018, a movement rejecting autocratic student councils and demanding revival of democratically elected student unions across Bengal's higher educational institutions was led by Srijan. In his tenure, SFI gained back student unions in both the prestigioous universities of Jadavpur and Presidency after a decade. His role as a student leader in anti-NRC anti-CAA protests during the early 2020s was crucial in organising students throughout the state.

Throughout the Covid Pandemic and Lockdown, SFI under the leadership of PratikUr and Srijan was vocal on students' concerns like Digital Divide, and carried on a successful movement compelling the West Bengal government to reopen educational institutions in January 2022. He has been an active participant in the huge contingent of young Leftist covid volunteers, more popuparly known as Red Volunteers.

He has been one of the major organisers in building student-youth movements against corruption in college admissions, recruitment scams of TMC Government and murder of student activist Anish Khan. During his term, SFI in West Bengal has carried on massive demonstrations against the National Education Policy 2020, and other education related issues like fee hikes, campus democracy, transport fares etc. He has acted as one of the brains behind formulating an Alternative Education Policy by SFI, as opposed to the NEP 2020.