Come April 29, Bhabanipur will witness the mother of all electoral battles of the two day long Assembly election of West Bengal.
Trinamool Congress supremo and chief minister, Mamata Banerjee will be defending the constituency against leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari representing BJP.Banerjee is TMC’s chief ministerial face.while Adhikari is an aspirant for the same post.
Incidentally, another winner from Bhabanipur Assembly segment once adorned the chief minister’s chair- Siddhartha Shankar Ray, the last chief .minister from Congress. The electoral battle of Bhabanipur provide pointers to the mindset of its principal contestants, Banerjee and Adhikari.
It also brings to mind some commonalities with the previous poll battle between the two rivals in Nandigram five years ago.. Banerjee has staked her political future on the outcome of a single election. Adhikari, on the other hand, has not put all his eggs in one basket, being a contestant from Nandigram, a seat where he defeated Banerjee by a wafer thin margin..
Five years ago, both the leaders had sought their poll fortune from a single seat. Arguably, the BJP nominee is more cautious this time.Adhikari has reasons for hedging his bets. After all, he is taking on Banerjee in her own turf.
Bhabanipur is rich in political history. Home to such stalwarts like Chitta Ranjan Das, Asutosh Mookherjee and his illustrious son Syama Prasad Mookherjee to name few, Mamata Banerjee too lives here. She cut her teeth in student politics from a local college. Bhabanipur constituency lies at the heart of Kolkata Dakshin Lok Sabha seat from where she had a long series of thumping victories.
Adhikari is only too aware of the influence and popularity of his onetime Cabinet colleague which has made his electoral victory an uphill task. Not a single municipal ward of this constituency has a BJP councillor
The sole BJP candidate who won from ward 73 just behind Jadu Babur bazar has switched loyalty to the Trinamool camp. On the face of it, TMC has Bhabanipur pretty well sewn up.
A closer look reveals that Adhikari has placed his bets on Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive which has not left voters of Bhabanipur unaffected. The slim margin between the votes received by the TMC and BJP nominees in 2024 Lok Sabha polls is another cause of cheer for Adhikari.
A little more than 14,000 names were under adjudication on February 28 when the “final’ SIR list was brought out by Election Commission. The subsequent supplementary lists showed 3875 names have been deleted of which 1554 were Muslims and 2321 were non-Muslims.
One per cent of those whose whose names were deleted were Muslims. In all, 20 per cent of Bhabanipur’s population are Muslims, according 2011 census. The Muslim share in December 16 2025 list is 23 per cent. It was list for absent, shifted and duplicate voters which number 44,000 voters in Bhabanipur. In the list of voters with logical discrepancy in Bhabanipur, the Muslims comprised 52 per cent.More names were apprehended to be deleted in the supplementary list.
Trinamool Congress candidate from Kolkata Dakshin Mala Roy got a slim lead of 8,297 votes from Bhabanipur which is a part of this parliamentary constituency. BJP led in 149 out of 269 booths in Bhabanipur Assembly segment in the parliamentary elections last year.
If these figures have emboldened the saffron leadership of pulling off a shock victory in TMC’s strongest bastion, they have reckoned without Mamata Banerjee.The TMC’s principal vote catcher have obliterated even an iota of complacency from her campaign.
Visiting each home at least thrice, seperate meetings with communities and large rallies are TMC’s the three pronged campaign plan.Banerjee, a local girl has a better connect with the voters of Bhabanipur than her electoral rival Adhikari, an outsider.
The object is to make the campaign intimate Thereafter, it aims to reaffirm the TMC’s base among the several communities living in Bhabanipur. Attending these community meetings Banerjee has pointed out the slim lead of her party nominee Roy in the parliamentary polls.
Speaking at a housing complex gathering at Lord Sinha Road, she asked the residents to tell her of their problems and then asked for their support, hastening to add that she pursued her B.Ed course at a college nearby.
Mayor Firad Hakim had met morning walkers including several top industrialists at Alipore Horticultural Garden and sought support from them for his leader.
Though a few raised the issue of absence of industry, the direct appeal to some of the leaders of Marwari and Gujrati communities is likely to translate into votes for the TMC supremo on April 29.
The boundary for Bhabanipur stretches from Bhabanipur-Chakraberia in the east to Alipur-Ekbalpur and Khidirpur in the west. It is bordered by Chetla in the south and the Maidan in the north.
Adhikari may or may not have passed by these areas. But Banerjee is familiar with each one of them long before she became people’s representative. The BJP candidate may feel deletion of the number of Muslim voters boosts his winning possibilities.
The not too large margin of the TMC candidate in the Lok Sabha polls is adding to his optimism. But then it was Hindu votes which formed the major portion of Banerjee’s victory margin of 58. 832 votes in September, 2021 by-poll. The. number of voters of this community have not suffered significant deletion.Recipients of social welfare schemes ike Lakshmir Bhander, Yuba Sathi, Rupasree, Kanyasree cut across religious lines in the state. Bhabanipur is no exception.
Small wonder, its voters have little reason to change their political loyalty at the call of a newcomer like Adhikari. To them poll promises of the saffron camp can wait. Meanwhile, Adhikari is encountering a factor which had hindered Banerjee’s campaign five years ago at Nandigram. He is hamstrung by sentiment for the local girl and his own unfamiliarity with the constiturncy terrain.
He can promise the moon to Bhabanipur voters. But they would rather prefer to go by the words of the TMC candidate with the girl next door image who has often shown in the past that she can get things done.
