Suvendu Adhikari defeats Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur

E-PaperSubscribeSubscribeEnjoy unlimited accessSubscribe Now! Get features like Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Suvendu Adhikari defeated Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur by over 15,000 votes on Monday, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI) website. Suvendu Adhikari defeated Mamata by over 15,000 votes. (PTI)The BJP not just clinched Bhabanipur, but bagged five of the 11 seats in Kolkata. These seats – Rashbehari in South Kolkata and Jorasanko, Shyampukur, Maniktala and Kashipur – Belgachia in North Kolkata were considered TMC strongholds. The BJP won five seats including Kolkata Port, Ballygunge, Chowranghee, Entally and Beleghata. On April 2, as Adhikari filed his nomination papers for Kolkata’s Bhabanipur seat, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, while leading the roadshow, said that West Bengal’s change would come from Bhabanipur. “The responsibility of bringing a change in West Bengal lies in the hands of the voters of Bhabanipur. To bring change we will have to win one seat after another to reach the target of 170. But I have a shortcut. If the voters of Bhabanipur ensure this one seat only, change will come on its own,” Shah said. Over a month later, Banerjee was defeated by BJP’s heavyweight candidate Adhikari. Many prominent TMC leaders lost including Debasish Kumar, MLA and member-mayor-in-council, Shashi Panja, state commerce and industry minister and Atin Ghosh, deputy mayor of Kolkata. In 2021 the TMC won 11 seats in Kolkata. Highest lead came from Ballygunge where former TMC leader Subrata Mukherjee won with a margin of 75,359 votes. The lowest was in Jorasanko where Vivek Gupta defeated BJP’s Meena Devi Purohit by a margin of 12,743 votes. After Banerjee was defeated in Nandigram in Purba Mednipur by her former protégé Adhikari, she returned to Bhabanipur and won the seat by defeating BJP’s Priyanka Tibrewal with a margin of 58,832 votes. Also Read:West Bengal: Suvendu Adhikari emerges as BJP’s giant killer in Bengal In 2026, Kolkata recorded a high turnout, with the second and final phase at 88%. In 2021 the city registered a 62.3% turnout, this year it stood at 88.59%. Political analysts said that while the special intensive revision (SIR) was a reason why voters exercised their right in record numbers, the anti-incumbency factory also played a major role in pushing up the voter turnout in cities including Kolkata. The total number of electors stood at 2.4 million before the SIR deleted at least 6,06,540 names, about 25% of the city’s electorate. A few thousand names were deleted from the final list. 67,632 names were deleted after adjudication. In 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Banerjee won the Bhabanipur seat in a by-election in October 2021 with a record margin of 58,832 votes against her nearest rival Priyanka Tibrewal of the BJP. TMC’s Mala Roy won the South Kolkata parliamentary seat defeating BJP’s Debasree Chaudhuri by a margin of 1,87,231 votes. In Bhabanipur, Roy had a lead of 8,207 votes. Party insiders said that the TMC trailed the BJP in four of the eight civic wards that constitute Bhabanipur in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. More than 50,000 names were deleted from Bhabanipur after the SIR. “Unlike the rural areas, the majority of voters in large cities like Kolkata are not dependent on the government’s schemes. Anti-incumbency and the SIR-effect played a key role here,” political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty said. The BJP also won seats in Tollygunge, Jadavpur, Behala Paschim, and Behala Purba, while the TMC won the Kasba assembly seat. Joydeep Thakur is a Special Correspondent based in Kolkata. He focuses on science, environment, wildlife, agriculture and other related issues.