AIMIM plans to contest all 294 West Bengal Assembly seats in the 2026 elections, seeking Muslims’ support.
KOLKATA: After anti-incumbency and corruption charges, Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee now faces a fresh challenge. The Hyderabad-based All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) has decided to contest the 2026 West Bengal elections. It is targeting the same Muslim vote bank that has strongly supported Mamata Banerjee through the years.
According to the 2011 Census, Muslims constitute 27% of the electorate in West Bengal. This segment has always voted en bloc for the Trinamool Congress, which has been a key reason for the party’s repeated electoral victories. In a press conference in Kolkata this week, AIMIM claimed that Muslims now make up more than 40% of West Bengal’s population and announced it would contest all 294 Assembly seats in the 2026 polls, seeking the support of the Muslim community.
“We are here to make a big announcement. We fought in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Delhi. In Bengal, we will fight from all seats. In the last panchayat elections, the AIMIM received 60,000 votes in Malda, 25,000 in Murshidabad, and 15,000 to 18,000 in other areas,” AIMIM leader Md Imran Solanki said.
“We have around 3 lakh members in Bengal and won about 1.5 lakh votes in the 2023 Panchayat elections just from Malda and Murshidabad,” Solanki added.
He stated that the party’s first priority would be to increase its membership in the state.
To facilitate this, the party has adopted a strategy similar to that of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by announcing a mobile number for prospective members to register by giving a missed call.
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian after the press conference, Solanki said, “We have been actively working at the grassroots for the past five years. We shall reap the benefits next year.”
He mentioned that the formal campaign would start next month, with AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi expected to be present.
“For years now, Mamata Banerjee has been portraying herself as the Messiah of Muslims, hoodwinking them,” Solanki said.
“The time has come to bust that myth.”
Solanki argued that the “so-called secular parties like the Congress and the Left” had never prioritised the development of the Muslim community. He said that the community should now learn to stand on its own feet and claim its rightful place in the Indian polity.
Solanki claimed that Banerjee and her party had played a “very suspicious role” during the protests against NRC, CAA and the Waqf Bill.
“Even on the matter of the Uniform Civil Code, she has played a largely passive role at the national level,” he pointed out.
“Mamata’s party creates a hullabaloo in and around Parliament, only to help the BJP by abstaining from crucial voting,” he told The Sunday Guardian.
Accusing the Trinamool Congress of exploiting Muslim votes, Solanki claimed that the stretch from the Calcutta High Court to Fort William was Waqf property from which the ruling party benefited.
“The Trinamool takes advantage of Waqf properties. If the government wants Muslim votes, they should share the accounts of the Waqf Board with us,” he said.
He further stated that one of his party’s objectives was to expose Banerjee’s “duplicity” before the Muslim community in Bengal.
“Just by giving doles to imams and muezzins, she should not think that the entire Muslim community has become her slaves,” he asserted.
Hitting out at both the TMC and the BJP for the state of affairs in Bengal, he said, “They are two sides of the same coin as they come to power using Muslim votes, but do nothing for us.”
“Look at the increasing number of RSS offices opening right under the nose of the TMC government. BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari is Mamata Banerjee’s product. Just see how no case is registered against him despite his use of foul language, even as our people are framed in one case after another,” Solanki alleged.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which is also hoping to benefit from the polarisation and consolidation of votes in the election, has indicated that it is focused on the Hindu vote.
“We are very clear that the BJP is a party of Sanatanis, by Sanatanis, for Sanatanis. We are not concerned about whom the Muslims vote for. If Hindu Sanatanis, who have faced many problems in Bengal over the years, come together, it will be the end of Mamata,” Suvendu Adhikari, the BJP’s Leader of the Opposition, told The Sunday Guardian.
“By imposing curbs on Ram Navami processions, Durga and Saraswati pujas, Mamata Banerjee has always tried to persecute Sanatani Hindus. We as a party are trying to make the Sanatanis understand how communal Mamata is,” senior leader Rahul Sinha said.
“We are confident that even Trinamool supporters who are Hindu will support us,” he added.
Predictably, the Trinamool Congress has questioned AIMIM’s intent in contesting all Assembly seats in Bengal. Kolkata Mayor, State Minister, and the Trinamool’s Muslim face, Firhad Hakim, accused AIMIM of being the BJP’s “B team.”
Hakim, a close Mamata aide, alleged that AIMIM’s actions were aimed at dividing votes to benefit the BJP electorally.
“This is the BJP’s B team. It goes to cut votes. In Delhi and Bihar, AIMIM cut votes and helped the BJP win. They have been eyeing Bengal for a while. Hence, they are bringing up non-issues,” Hakim said.
Solanki defended his party’s democratic right to participate in elections and pointed out that other parties, including the Trinamool Congress, had contested in states like Goa and Tripura without success.
“How are we vote cutters? In Delhi, the Congress contested and lost 22 seats. In Tripura and Goa, the Trinamool Congress went and cut votes. We are a political party and we will fight elections. Any alliance decision is with Owaisi,” Solanki said.
AIMIM made its Bengal debut in the 2021 Assembly election but failed to make an impact. The party had fielded seven candidates in Malda, Murshidabad, and North Dinajpur districts—minority-dominated areas—but failed to garner significant votes.
This time, party leaders say, the outcome will be different.
“We have been working silently on the ground for four years now at the block level,” Solanki said.
As part of its outreach programme, AIMIM is going door-to-door in districts for its membership drive. It is also organising iftar parties in the districts.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, the Trinamool Congress registered a 45.77% vote share, while the BJP received 38.73%.
“Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress win elections because Muslim voters vote en masse for it. Mamata should worry that if the Hindu votes consolidate behind the BJP and the Muslim votes get divided between AIMIM and Trinamool, she will lose for sure,” said political science expert Raja Gopal Dhar Chowdhury.