A towering banner proclaiming ‘She was in power, she is in power, she will remain in power’ greets passers-by in South Kolkata’s Harish Mukherjee Road, a stone’s throw from the residence of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, signalling the high-stakes battle unfolding in her political backyard.
Banerjee is set to face her arch-rival Suvendu Adhikari, the Leader of Opposition, who has chosen to contest from Bhabanipur, the Chief Minister’s home turf, setting the stage for one of the most closely watched contests in next month’s Assembly elections. The constituency has turned into a theatre of intense campaigning, with both the ruling All India Trinamool Congress and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party stepping up door-to-door outreach and street-level mobilisation.
At a Trinamool Congress party office, septuagenarian local leader Asish Ghosh dismissed the BJP challenge, predicting a decisive victory for Banerjee. “Didi knows her constituency like the back of her hand. She has always been available for the people here. People are getting support from her government through welfare schemes like Lakshmir Bhandar, Kanyashree and Yuva Sathi,” Ghosh said.
He also alleged voter disenchantment over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. “People are very angry with the Election Commission and the BJP due to the harassment voters are facing. In Bhabanipur, many genuine voters’ names got deleted. The Narendra Modi government has also failed to deal with the LPG shortage issue,” he added.
Special Intensive Revision
During the revision exercise, over 47,000 names were deleted from electoral rolls in the constituency, while about 14,000 electors remained under adjudication pending judicial verification as on February 28. Adhikari had months earlier declared his intent to contest from Bhabanipur and repeat his earlier electoral success against Banerjee.
In the 2021 Assembly elections, Adhikari defeated Banerjee in Nandigram in Purba Medinipur district by a slender margin of 1,956 votes. However, Banerjee led the Trinamool Congress to a sweeping victory statewide and later re-entered the Assembly through a by-election in Bhabanipur, winning by a margin of 58,000 votes, reaffirming the seat as one of her strongest bastions.
The BJP, however, draws confidence from the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, when the Trinamool Congress secured a relatively modest lead of 8,291 votes from the Bhabanipur Assembly segment amid allegations of corruption and signs of anti-incumbency. “We will win this time from Bhabanipur seat, not an iota of doubt,” said local BJP leader Rabindra Chowdhury.
“When we are meeting voters, we are witnessing anger towards Mamata Banerjee and her government over corruption, from the School Service Commission recruitment scam to money laundering linked to the coal scam. Several Trinamool leaders are involved in big scams,” he said.
He also referred to the RG Kar Hospital rape-murder case, saying concerns over women’s safety remain a key campaign issue.
“People have not forgotten the RG Kar hospital rape-murder case. Women are not safe in Kolkata and Bengal,” Chowdhury said, adding that the removal of alleged “ghost voters” during the SIR exercise would weaken Trinamool’s electoral machinery.
Bhabanipur, carved largely from wards of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, reflects the city’s social diversity, with a sizeable Hindi-speaking trading and business community alongside Muslim-majority pockets.
The constituency is scheduled to vote on April 29 in the second phase of the Assembly elections, in what is widely expected to be one of the fiercest political contests in the State.
Published on March 24, 2026
