On the campaign trail: Bengal before the final vote
The Statesman | 27 April 2026
On a sweltering Sunday afternoon, Mamata Banerjee stepped out in her trade mark rubber slippers and white sari with a simple, almost austere border at Chakraberia, in the heart of her Bhabanipur constituency, from where she had stormed out last night, protesting the loud use of mikes by rival BJP workers to drown out her campaign meet.
As the crowd cheered, and an old Sikh gentleman stepped out to grasp her hands, Banerjee once again came across as the ‘street fighter politician’ who had managed to keep at bay the BJP juggernaut from defeating her in West Bengal.
She was heard telling policemen, “Ei aste dao, ora sob amar chena” (Let them come near, they are all known to me), as the crowd pushed forward to greet her during the ‘padyatra’ from Lansdown to a fire station at Kalighat, where she lives. It’s going to be a busy day for Banerjee with pit stop public rallies throughout South Kolkata.
A day before the first phase of elections to the West Bengal assembly, which were held on April 23, BJP leader and prominent industrialist Sishir Bajoria had remarked to UNI “The TMC chief appears nervous on stage and has made statements about ‘if TMC stays alive’ … these are telling.”
However, that nervousness, if it was there, seems to have dissolved. The creases and worry lines on her face appered to have disappeared overnight. On Thursday, in an attacking speech, Banerjee had vowed “I will take over Delhi once I have secured victory in Bengal. I will do so by rallying all the political parties together. I won’t want the seat (of power); I want the complete dismantling of the BJP in Delhi.”
Some 76 kms away, at Bongaon, the man whom she has promised to unseat in Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, attacked her government for encouraging corruption and letting Bengal decline economically.
“At some stage, there were many jute mills and factories along the river from here to Barrackpore … most of them have shut shop over the years. Only one shop has survived – of taking cut money … TMC does not deserve Bengal, the state deserves a government which will fulfill its people’s dreams,” thundered Modi.
The prime minister had, before coming to Bongaon, visited Thakurnagar, the headquarters of the 3 million-strong Matua religious community. The Matuas, a community of Namashudras who follow the preachings of 19th-century reformer Harichand Thakur and have their origins in what is now Bangladesh, have been up in arms over the deletion of their community members’ names from the voter rolls by the special intensive revision which is being carried out.
Modi’s trip was meant to assure them that their Indian citizenship would not be hampered or questioned. Matuas, who are spread over several border districts of South Bengal, can make or break the BJP’s chances of coming within striking range and the anger in their villages is palpable.
“There have been 200-300 deletions in every village … young girls are asking me, will I never be able to vote?” Dilip Matua, secretary of Matua Samaj, an NGO which works for the upliftment of the community, told UNI at his society’s office in a village on the outskirts of North 24 Parganas.
In Bhabanipur, where Mamata Banerjee’s TMC has held sway since 2011, she seemed well entrenched, despite hectic campaigning by her former lieutenant turned BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, whose workers have been mapping the constituency, a mosaic of many communities, often called mini-India, in order to micro-manage a loyalty shift away from Banerjee.
Bengali speakers jostle for space with Gujaratis, Sikhs, Tamils and Hindi speakers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in this sprawling constituency at the heart of the city, which straddles South and Central Kolkata.
Muslims make up a quarter of the population but have been hit by voter deletions during the SIR. However, Banerjee had a massive lead of over 58,000 votes last time round, and analysts believe this is unassailable.
“Quite rightly, the chief minister concentrated on campaigning in other parts of Bengal, leaving Bhabanipur to last-minute campaigns. This is a strategy which paid off for her earlier,” points out political scientist Sabyasachi Basu Roy Chowdhury, former Vice Chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University.
However, Banerjee’s confidence in her hold over Bhabanipur also stems from the exceptionally well-organised TMC election machinery, which is visible everywhere, especially in the last mile connectivity.
As the campaign hurtles towards its final phase, the contrasts on Bengal’s political stage have sharpened into a high-stakes duel between a regional incumbent banking on grassroots networks and a national challenger pressing for structural change.
The energy on the streets, from Bhabanipur’s dense lanes to the restless border districts, suggests a contest that is as much about identity and belonging as it is about governance and development.
With voter anxieties over citizenship, livelihoods and representation simmering beneath the surface, the decisive question now is not merely who commands the louder campaign, but who can convert that into ballots when Bengal finally returns to the polling booth coming Wednesday.