Woman in male-dominated field, how Mamata Banerjee lost Bengal to ‘outsider’ BJP

E-PaperSubscribeSubscribeEnjoy unlimited accessSubscribe Now! Get features like A woman in a male-dominated field, a fighter in a saree and the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) biggest impenetrable roadblock in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee is a political leader who has fought anti-incumbency sentiments and an aggressive campaign by rivals thrice consecutively. But in 2026 West Bengal assembly elections, luck and apparently peoples' mandate was not on her side. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee leaves her residence, in Kolkata on Monday. (ANI)The TMC chief, loved as ‘Didi’ by her supporters, failed to hold on to her fortress, which is finally within BJP's reach, for a fourth straight term. Not just did Mamata Banerjee lose West Bengal to a party she termed outsider, she also lost her bastion Bhabanipur to BJP's Suvendu Adhikari - her ex-close aide who fought against her from the seat. Track latest in assembly elections 2026 here Mamata Banerjee's party is set be on the other side of power in West Bengal, a state where it is known to have built a strong cadre that helped keep the BJP in opposition for over a decade. All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) founder Mamata Banerjee, who has built her political persona on defiance - be it the Singur faceoff with the then ruling government in 2006-2008 or taking on the central government, first became chief minister in 2011, ending the 34-year Left Front rule. This election, however, was no ordinary contest. Mamata's top competitor was the aggressive BJP which left no stone unturned in its attempt to win the state this time, not just as the opposition but as the ruling party. The BJP mounted a high-decibel campaign, deploying top leadership and significant resources. Yet, Banerjee turned the contest into a deeply personal battle, framing it as one of Bengal versus "outsiders" and identity versus imposition. The pitch to keep BJP out of the state included caution to people that if the party comes to power, it will make access to non-vegetarian food difficult-something that is not just food for many Bengalis, but an emotion. Born to a Bengali Hindu Brahmin family in Kolkata in 1955, Mamata Banerjee comes from humble roots. Her father, Promileswar Banerjee, was a freedom fighter who died due to lack of medical treatment when she was 17. Mamata Banerjee's mother Gayetri Devi was a homemaker who died from age-related ailments in 2011 at the age of 81. Based on publicly available information, Mamata Banerjee is one of eight siblings. She has six brothers and, according to different reports, is either the only sister or one of very few sisters. Starting her political career in the 1970s, Mamata Banerjee's journey includes beginnings with the Indian National Congress and even a stint with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) - her biggest rival now - with which she served as a Union minister In Congress, where she began her political career, she quikcly rose through the ranks and placed herself in a position of prominence in Bengal's political landscape during the 1980s. She became one of the youngest parliamentarians in India after defeating veteran communist leader Somnath Chatterjee in the Jadavpur constituency in 1984, marking the biggest milestone of her early career characterised by grassroots activism, a combative political style, and a strong opposition to the long-standing Left Front government, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). In 1997, owing to growing differences with the Congress leadership, Banerjee broke away to mark the biggest turning point in her career by floating her own party, the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC or TMC). She positioned herself as the principal challenger to the Left Front in the state. To strengthen her footing at the national level, she tied up with the NDA and served as Union railway minister under the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee government from 1999-2001. During her tenure, she focused on expanding railway connectivity and introducing new trains, particularly benefiting eastern India. The following years provided Mamata Banerjee with some of her career's biggest talking points. Singur, a town in Hooghly district, became a major political flashpoint in 2006 over land acquisition for a Tata Motors factory. The protests led by Mamata Banerjee eventually forced the project's withdrawal, reshaping West Bengal's political landscape. Banerjee's political strategy evolved over time, and she shifted alliances multiple times. This included periods of cooperation with the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), during which she served as the railway minister again, from 2009 to 2011. But, the primary focus of dislodging the Left government ultimately showed results in 2011, when she secured a historic victory in the state elections, removing the Left from power after 24 uninterrupted years - one of the longest-serving democratically elected communist governments in the world. Since then, no opposition party or alliance had managed to remove Mamata Banerjee from power. Mamata Banerjee has fought state elections from Bhabanipur and Nandigram. She won from Bhabanipur in 2011 by-election, which she fought as she was an MP in the Lok Sabha back, then in 2016, and again in 2021 (byelection). She contested from Nandigram in 2021, but lost to Suvendu Adhikari - her close aide who joined the BJP from the TMC before the polls - by a narrow margin. As an opposition leader and a chief minister, Mamata Banerjee has cultivated an image of elder sister - 'Didi' - to the people of West Bengal. Her governance style is often described as direct and people-centric, though it has also attracted criticism over issues such as political violence and administrative centralisation. Several factors have been attributed as reasons for TMC's crushing defeat in West Bengal, including a significant shift in BJP's strategy after its 2021 defeat that comprised efforts by party worked to shed the "outsider" perception that had previously hurt it, repositioning itself as a more localised force rooted in Bengal's cultural identity. Party leaders cited in an earlier HT report credited the party's localised campaign, which used slogans such as "Joy Ma Kali" and "Joy Ma Durga" instead of "Joy Shree Ram" and a focus on booth- level management, for its victory. While BJP was able to tap into growing dissatisfaction with governance and counter the TMC's traditional welfare advantage, the scale of the defeat for Mamata Banerjee's party was driven as much by accumulated governance fatigue as by a sharp political shift. Over 15 years, allegations of corruption, weak law and order, and economic stagnation steadily eroded the Trinamool Congress's credibility, particularly among urban, middle-class, and business communities. Analysts pointed to extortion, crime, and lack of industrial growth as persistent concerns that finally translated into votes against the incumbent. This discontent cut across communities, with both Hindu and Muslim voters showing signs of drift, reflected in the collapse of the TMC's vote share and the BJP's gains in urban centres like Kolkata. The surge in turnout, aided by a cleaned-up electoral roll and heightened voter mobilisation, further amplified this anti-incumbency wave. At the same time, the TMC's long-standing reliance on minority consolidation triggered a counter-polarisation among Hindu voters, while sections of Muslim voters splintered towards smaller parties like Humayun Kabir's AJUP and Nawsad Siddique's ISF, weakening its base in closely contested seats. The BJP used this churn to its benefit by mobilising migrant workers, targeting women voters with higher direct benefit promises to take on Mamata Banerjee's much-loved Lakshmir Bhandar scheme, and harnessing on emotive issues alongside governance failures. Crucially, the election exposed a structural weakness within the TMC - its heavy dependence on Mamata Banerjee's personal appeal without a correspondingly strong organisational or ideological backbone - leaving it vulnerable when public sentiment decisively turned. “It is a party that relied entirely on Mamata’s image rather than its organisational strength. It also depended heavily on the perks of power and had zero ideological base,” an earlier HT report quoted political analyst Debasish Dasgupta as saying. As mentioned in the above-mentioned earlier report, several TMC leaders, unwilling to be named, conceded that Banerjee’s drive to make Bengal opposition-free during her first term had become the cause of her downfall — breaking the Congress alliance within a year of 2011, pushing the BJP into the political vacuum, and starting the polarisation that concluded on Monday, May 4. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed BJP's Bengal victory on Monday, Mamata Banerjee parallelly promised to “bounce back”, describing party's win as “immoral” and through a massive “vote loot”.