Kolkata: Aiming to cause a massive upset in the 2026 Assembly elections in West Bengal, the Bharatiya Janata Party has decided to beard the lioness in her own den.
BJP sources say Suvendu Adhikari, the BJP’s Leader of the Opposition, is planning to contest from the Bhabanipur constituency in south Kolkata, where Mamata Banerjee has lived all her life. This is the constituency that elected Mamata Banerjee in a bypoll after Adhikari defeated the Chief Minister in a closely fought electoral battle in Nandigram in 2021.
After her defeat in Nandigram, the Trinamool Congress chairperson had to get elected within six months in order to retain her chair. So, Sobhandev Chattopadhyay, a Trinamool minister who had won from Bhabanipur, vacated his seat so that Mamata Banerjee could be elected. Mamata Banerjee won the bypoll with a margin of 59,000 votes against her BJP opponent Priyanka Tibrewal.
However, numbers of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections reveal that the Trinamool Congress had lagged behind the BJP in five out of the eight KMC wards that make up the Bhabanipur Assembly constituency. In the Lok Sabha polls, the TMC’s lead was reduced to 8,297 votes from the 58,832-vote margin Mamata had secured in the September 2021 bypoll.
Adhikari, who often boasts of his victory over the Chief Minister in Nandigram during the 2021 Assembly elections, apparently told BJP leaders that Mamata Banerjee was unlikely to change her constituency and would contest from Bhabanipur.
Suvendu Adhikari met BJP leaders in the Bhabanipur Assembly constituency on Tuesday evening and purportedly issued directives for the party’s win there next year, fuelling speculations that he would take on Mamata Banerjee on her home turf in the 2026 polls.
“During the meeting, Suvendu-da asked us to leave no stone unturned to ensure the BJP’s victory in Bhabanipur. He also dropped several hints that he would contest from the south Kolkata seat, where the sitting MLA is Mamata Banerjee,” said a BJP leader from south Kolkata.
“He (Adhikari) said all leaders should work together to defeat Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur. If we win this seat, it will strengthen our footprint not only in Kolkata but also in Mamata Banerjee’s stronghold,” the leader quoted Suvendu Adhikari as saying.
A Trinamool Congress insider said the contest was unlikely to be easy for the party if Adhikari was fielded in Bhabanipur.
A source of concern for the Trinamool and hope for the BJP is the demography of the constituency. Almost 80% of the voters are Hindus with a significant number of Gujaratis and Punjabis. With signs clear that both parties would use religious polarisation as a vote-catching tool, the contest may be very close.
BJP sources say that Adhikari intensified his political activities in Bhabanipur after Mamata held a meeting with eight TMC councillors from the Bhabanipur Assembly segment at her Kalighat residence on 27 February. During the meeting, she instructed them to ensure a significant lead for the TMC in next year’s Assembly elections from each Kolkata Municipal Corporation ward. She also told her leaders to detect and weed out “fake voters”, which the BJP feels will be used to target its diehard followers.
A BJP leader said: “We have already begun the primary work before visiting the doorstep of voters in Bhabanipur with the electoral roll to determine whether TMC leaders are eliminating the names of Hindu or non-Bengali voters in the area. We have to be vigilant about Bhabanipur.”
“The TMC plans to find out our voters and lodge a complaint with the Election Commission of India (ECI), claiming them as outsiders for the elimination of their names from the voter list. Even if anyone’s name is deleted from the voter list, we will ensure the re-entry of the particular voter lodging a counter-complaint with the commission,” another party leader said.
BJP sources said Adhikari was likely to open a new party office in Ward 73, where Mamata Banerjee’s residence is located at 30-B, Harish Chatterjee Street. The ward is represented by Kajari Banerjee, Mamata’s sister-in-law.
“If everything goes as planned, the new party office may be set up in mid-April, after the Bengali New Year, Poila Boisakh,” said the BJP leader.
The BJP has started to strengthen its presence in the Bhabanipur Assembly constituency area. On Tuesday, nearly 200 BJP workers held a meeting in the area. According to sources, BJP workers will hold “chai pe charcha” meetings across different neighbourhoods in Bhabanipur on a regular basis and interact more with the locals. In the meeting, leaders asked workers to start attending more social and cultural programmes in these areas and to attend iftar parties.
“Common voters are afraid of violence during the polls. Trinamool workers intimidate them and many voters don’t dare to step out of their homes on voting day,” said a Bengal BJP leader.
“During the Lok Sabha polls, we could minimise the losses and the party was ahead of Trinamool in five of the eight wards here. We were trailing by just about 150 votes in ward 73 where Kajari Banerjee, the CM’s sister-in-law, is a councillor. Besides, we were behind the TMC only in wards 77 and 82,” he said.
According to BJP seniors, the party’s challenge in the area is the minority-dominated ward 77 where the Trinamool Congress usually secures a huge margin.
After remaining comatose for years, the CPM has also begun political work in Bhabanipur. This has raised the BJP’s hackles. “The CPIM is the Trinamool’s B-team. They are trying to divide the Hindu Sanatani voters in order to give advantage to Mamata,” BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya told The Sunday Guardian.
A senior BJP functionary in Kolkata emphasised that the decision on the party’s Assembly and Lok Sabha election candidates rested with the Central leaders, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who is likely to visit West Bengal later this month to review the BJP’s preparedness for the 2026 Assembly polls.
However, it remains unclear whether Adhikari will contest from Nandigram also if the party fields him from Bhabanipur against Mamata Banerjee.
“The BJP will ensure a strong candidate against the Chief Minister wherever she chooses to contest. Suvendu-da is known for defeating Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram and he should be the best choice,” said a BJP insider.