West Bengal's Electoral Battleground: Close Margins, High Stakes in 2026

A third force has always been present in state politics, yet there has been more of a two-way fight for power.

Through time, the Trinamool Congress replaced its alma mater, the Congress, in challenging the might of the Left Front, finally crushing the red bastion.

In recent times, it is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that has evolved into the state's principal Opposition, eclipsing both the Congress and the Communists.

The BJP's earlier avatar, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, though established in Delhi in October 1951, was founded by Shyama Prasad Mookerjee with roots in West Bengal.

However, the Jana Sangh could not make a mark in the state, though Mookerjee was seen as the spokesman of Bengali Hindu refugees from erstwhile East Pakistan.

The party, later evolving as the BJP, failed to make a dent even as National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partner Mamata Banerjee began consolidating her base - albeit slowly - after breaking away from the Congress.

However, the BJP later did win two Lok Sabha seats, where many attributed the victories to factors other than the party's own political achievement.

Through time, Mamata Banerjee realigned her Trinamool with the Congress and won reassuringly in 2011, forming the first non-Left government in the state in over three decades. The Trinamool supremo, being the astute and disruptive politician she is, chose to go solo after some time.

By then, the Left and the Congress stood marginalised, opening a window for the BJP.

In the 2011 Assembly election, the BJP failed to win a single seat among the 289 of the total 294 Vidhan Sabha constituencies, managing a meagre 4 per cent share in valid votes polled in the state. However, in the 2016 state polls, the BJP managed a toehold, winning three among 291 of its contestants, managing about 10 per cent vote share. But the best performance was registered in 2021, with the BJP claiming victory in 77 of the 293 constituencies in which it had nominated its candidates, claiming close to 40 per cent vote share.

The highlight of this election was an embarrassing moment for the Trinamool, with its Chairperson, Mamata Banerjee, losing from Nandigram by less than 2,000 votes to her former lieutenant, now Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP.

Incidentally, the Trinamool's protests against the erstwhile Left Front government's proposed chemical hub in Nandigram were led on the ground by Adhikari.

The Nandigram movement proved decisive - along with protests against land acquisition by Tata at Singur for the Nano project - in the 2011 defeat of the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee-led Left Front government.

Mamata Banerjee moved to her home turf of Bhabanipur to win a bye-election and become Chief Minister for the third successive time.

Meanwhile, in Parliamentary polls, the biggest score came for the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, when the Narendra Modi-driven juggernaut was rolling unchallenged. It cornered 18 of the state's 42 seats - a jump of 16 from the two it held earlier - getting over 40.6 per cent of the mandate against 17 per cent of 2014. The Trinamool lost 12 of the 34 seats it had won in 2014.

In 2024, though its leaders reflected much enthusiasm, the BJP conceded six of its seats and lost 1.5 per cent vote share from 2019, while the Trinamool gained seven seats to end with 29 altogether, with a little over 46 per cent of the mandate.

Thus, even a modest swing of two to three per cent can change the fate of a contestant in several Assembly seats in West Bengal, where the margins have been close, and turnout has been high.

Adding to the uncertainty are the entries of Humayun Kabir's Janata Unnayan Party (JUP) and Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM, with the Indian Secular Front, which already has one seat in the Assembly, all trying to woo the minorities that comprise the Trinamool's major vote bank.

- IANS