BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari defeated Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur by more than 15,000 votes on Monday, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI) website.
The BJP did not just limit itself to Bhabanipur, it bagged five of the 11 seats in Kolkata. These seats – Rashbehari in south Kolkata, Gorasanko, Shyampukur, Maniktala and Kashipur – Belgachiya in north Kolkata were considered strongholds of the TMC. The BJP won five seats including Kolkata Port, Ballygunge, Chowrangi, Entali and Belighata.
On April 2, when Adhikari filed his nomination papers for Bhabanipur seat in Kolkata, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, while leading the roadshow, said that the change in West Bengal would come from Bhabanipur.
“The responsibility to bring change in West Bengal lies in the hands of voters in Bhabanipur. To bring change, we will have to win seat after seat to reach the target of 170 seats. But I have a shortcut. If voters of Bhabanipur ensure just one seat, change will come on its own,” Shah said.
More than a month later, Banerjee was defeated by BJP heavyweight candidate Adhikari.
Several prominent TMC leaders lost including Debasish Kumar, MLA and member mayor of the council, Shashi Banga, state commerce and industry minister and Atin Ghosh, deputy mayor of Kolkata.
In 2021, TMC won 11 seats in Kolkata. The highest lead came from Ballygunge where former TMC leader Subrata Mukherjee won by a margin of 75,359 votes. The lowest was in Jorasanko where Vivek Gupta defeated BJP’s Meena Devi Purohit by a margin of 12,743 votes.
After Banerjee was defeated in Nandigram in Purba Medinipur by her former student Adhikari, she returned to Bhabanipur and won the seat, defeating BJP’s Priyanka Tibrewal by a margin of 58,832 votes.
Read also:West Bengal: Suvendu Adhikari emerges as the BJP’s giant killer in Bengal
In 2026, Kolkata recorded a high turnout, with participation in the second and final phase reaching 88%. In 2021, the city recorded a turnout of 62.3%, and this year it was 88.59%.
While the Special Intensive Review (SIR) had voters exercising their franchise in record numbers, the anti-incumbency factory also played a major role in increasing voter turnout in cities including Kolkata, political analysts said.
The total number of voters was 2.4 million before the SIR deleted at least 6,06,540 names, about 25% of the voters in the city. Several thousand names were removed from the final list. 67,632 names were deleted after separation.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Banerjee won the Bhabanipur seat in the October 2021 by-election by a record margin of 58,832 votes against her closest rival Priyanka Tibrewal of the BJP.
TMC’s Mala Roy won the South Kolkata parliamentary seat defeating BJP’s Debasree Chaudhary by a margin of 1,87,231 votes. In Bhabanipur, Roy got a lead of 8,207 votes. Party insiders said the TMC is trailing the BJP in four of the eight civic segments that make up Bhabanipur in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Over 50,000 names were deleted from Bhabanipur after the SIR report.
“Unlike rural areas, majority of voters in big cities like Kolkata are not dependent on government schemes. Anti-incumbency and SIR influence have played a major role here,” political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty said.
The BJP also won seats in Tollygunge, Jadavpur, Behala Paschim and Behala Purba, while the TMC won the Kasba Assembly seat.
