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Informist, Wednesday, Apr. 22, 2026

NEW DELHI – The first phase of the assembly election in West Bengal is set to take place Thursday with voting for 152 of the state's 294 seats. The curtains came down Wednesday on the intense campaign for the first phase. The remaining 142 constituencies will go to the polls in the second phase on Apr. 29.

Without a doubt, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress is facing her toughest election since 2011, when she dislodged the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front from power. The front had ruled West Bengal uninterrupted for 34 years.

This time, the challenger is the Bharatiya Janata Party, unmatched in money power and with the entire machinery of the central government at its disposal. According to political observers, even the Election Commission of India, the body responsible for ensuring a "level playing field" for all parties and for conducting free and fair elections, is no longer seen to be impartial.

For the past few years now, the Opposition has repeatedly accused the Election Commission of acting like an arm of the Narendra Modi government. The Trinamool Congress has had several bitter run-ins with the poll panel, with the war of words often spilling out on social media. Derek O'Brien, a leader of the party and a member of the Rajya Sabha, alleged on Apr. 8 that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had told a TMC delegation to "get lost" within 6-7 minutes of a meeting regarding voter deletions in West Bengal.

Quickly, the poll panel put out a social media post titled ‘ECI's Straight talk to Trinamool Congress'. It read, "This time, the elections in West Bengal would surely be: Fear-free, Violence-free, Intimidation-free, Inducement-free and without any Chappa, Booth Jamming and Source Jamming." Never before had the commission quarrelled so publicly with a political party.

Over nine million names have been deleted in the course of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in the state. Of these, women and Muslims--two sections that are believed to constitute the TMC's core vote base--have been disproportionately affected. According to some media reports, district-level data show high deletions in Muslim-majority regions such as Murshidabad, Malda, Nadia, Uttar Dinajpur, North 24 Parganas, and South 24 Parganas. The state has around 68.25 million voters, with the Election Commission adding around 500,000 names in the supplementary electoral rolls.

The TMC has also accused the BJP of misusing central investigative agencies after the Enforcement Directorate raided political strategy firm I-PAC's office in Kolkata in early January. The TMC has hired I-PAC, and the chief minister claimed that the raid was meant to "steal" documents related to her party's election strategy.

The BJP has left no stone unturned on the public campaigning front either. The party has deployed a battery of Union ministers and chief ministers and is sticking firmly to its Hindutva agenda, with Union Home Minister Amit Shah invoking the spectre of "ghuspaithiya" or infiltrators--the BJP's code for Muslims--Defence Minister Rajnath Singh promising a "Durga squad" to protect women, and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath going to the extent of saying at a public rally that the BJP will not allow the land of Bengal to turn into the "land of Kaaba", the holiest shrine of Muslims in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

Chief Minister Banerjee, with a fraction of the BJP's resources at her disposal, is relying on Bangla identity and pride, and her welfare schemes. She is also projecting herself as a lone woman fighter pitted against a mighty "outsider". "A total of 19 states and the central government have come together against me... I will continue to fight for the common people," she has been telling supporters at her rallies, which continue to draw huge crowds. The instant imagery of the goddess Durga fighting powerful demons is hard to miss for electors of a state whose primary deity is a woman incarnate.

Banerjee rode back to power in 2021 on the same planks, bagging 215 seats, while the BJP's tally jumped to 77 from three in 2016 with a vote share of 38%. The BJP's numbers came at the cost of the Left front and the Congress, both of which drew a blank in the assembly, though they together got 9% of the votes. The Congress, the CPI(M), and the TMC are partners in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance at the national level, but are contesting separately in West Bengal.

Over the years, the BJP has built a strong support base in North Bengal and amidst the Matua community, a Bengali Hindu Scheduled Caste group. A big reason for its rising fortunes was said to be the Left's voters moving to the BJP against their arch-rival Banerjee. Whether the pattern is repeated this time, or whether the saffron party succeeds in finding newer support bases, will be known on May 4.  End

Reported by Asim Khan

Edited by Rajeev Pai

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