10 key seats to watch in West Bengal elections 2026

With the assembly poll dates now announced, West Bengal is officially on track to chart the course of its government for the next five years. Following is a look at some of the key constituencies in the state which could go a long way in determining the colour of the state’s political landscape.

1. Bhabanipur

Perhaps the most high-profile Assembly constituency in the state owing to its representation by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the south Kolkata seat of Bhabanipur has remained a stronghold of TMC since the party came to power in 2011.

The Trinamool supremo won two Assembly bypolls and a full-term poll from this seat which also houses her residence.

After her defeat to BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram by a narrow margin in the 2021 assembly polls, a result she challenged before the Calcutta High Court, Mamata returned to the Assembly by winning the Bhabanipur bypoll later that year with 71.9 per cent of the votes.

Interestingly, her victory margin of nearly 59,000 votes, has lately become the subject of fervent political chatter owing to significant deletions of voters’ names from the constituency’s electoral rolls during the SIR exercise.

While the EC deleted 47,094 names, 44,786 at the draft stage and 2,324 more in the final list, it referred an additional over 14,000 electors to judicial officers for adjudication on grounds of logical discrepancies in enumeration forms.

Though Mamata, a vociferous critic of the roll revision exercise, has announced that she would win the seat, even it meant by a single vote, political observers feel the post-SIR rolls may have put Mamata to the toughest test in her political career ever, should she chose to repeat candidature from what the TMC considered its “safest seat”.

2. Nandigram

Nandigram in Purba Medinipur district occupies a special place in Bengal’s political history as the epicentre of the anti-land acquisition movement in 2007 during the Left Front regime. The protests against a proposed chemical hub became a turning point that weakened the Left’s three-decade rule and propelled Mamata Banerjee’s rise to power.

The constituency again grabbed national attention in the 2021 assembly elections when senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari defeated Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in a high-stakes contest, turning it into one of the most politically symbolic seats in the state.

3. Sandeshkhali

When Rekha Patra, a housewife from Sandeshkhali in Bengal’s Sunderbans delta and an alleged torture victim in the hands of arrested TMC leader Shajahan Sheikh, was fielded as the BJP’s face in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from the Basirhat seat, she was labelled as the “embodiment of the party’s fight against atrocities on women under Mamata Banerjee’s rule”.

Patra lost the polls in Basirhat, a Trinamool fortress, by a margin of over 3.33 lakh votes, to TMC’s Haji Nurul Islam, now deceased. The BJP, however, took heart from the fact that Patra managed to secure a lead over Islam in the Sandeshkhali assembly seat, one of the seven assembly constituencies that make up the Basirhat Lok Sabha constituency.

Two years hence, the Sandeshkhali violence issue may have been pushed to the back burner, but the saffron camp continues to keep the issue of women’s safety at the forefront of its election agenda.

4. Bhangar

Falling in the South 24-Parganas district, Bhangar was brought under the jurisdiction of Kolkata Police in 2024 for active policing owing to the sensitivity of the region marked by frequent political clashes between the TMC, which won the seat in 2016, and the Indian Secular Front (ISF) which currently holds political sway in the area after snatching the constituency from its rivals in the 2021 state polls.

In fact, ISF’s Nawsad Siddique remains the only non-BJP opposition MLA in the Assembly, with Bhangar standing as a sore spot in TMC’s electoral domination in south Bengal which the party desperately wants to retrieve.

Siddique, who won the Bhangar seat in 2021 with a margin of over 26,000 votes over his nearest TMC rival, is likely to contest from the seat again. A renewed electoral alliance between the ISF and CPI(M), which won the seat seven consecutive times from 1972 to 2001 and again in 2011 and still retains a bank of committed voters, only improves Siddique’s chances of repeating success, experts say.

Bitter factional rivalry within the TMC, allegedly between the party strongman Arabul Islam and the MLA of adjacent Canning Purba Saokat Molla, frequently surfacing in the region poses additional challenges for the party’s victory prospects in the seat.

5. Gaighata

Located in North 24-Parganas district along the India-Bangladesh border, Gaighata is widely regarded as a stronghold of the Matua community, a significant Scheduled Caste group whose political preferences often influence electoral outcomes in several constituencies.

The Matua vote has become a key battleground between the BJP and the ruling TMC, especially in the context of debates around citizenship, refugee rights and the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

6. Samserganj

A nondescript assembly constituency in Murshidabad district till recently, Samsergunj caught people’s attention following violent agitations in April 2025 against the Waqf (Amendment) Act. The killing of a 72-year-old man and his son in a mob attack at their house led to massive protests by the BJP, who had accused the ruling TMC of being complicit and the police of not taking action.

Central forces were deployed on High Court orders to control the situation in the violence-hit district.

Samserganj is a Muslim-majority constituency where the Congress came second in the 2021 polls with 37 per cent votes against the TMC’s 51 per cent. The BJP, which came third with less than 6 per cent vote share, hopes to improve its tally riding on polarisation, observers say.

7. Dinhata

This constituency in North Bengal’s Cooch Behar district has emerged as one of the most politically volatile segments of Bengal, marked by fierce electoral contests between the TMC and the BJP in recent years. A largely rural constituency with around three lakh voters, the presence of nearly 41 per cent ST electorate makes social and agrarian issues key factors in the region’s electoral politics.

Represented by Udayan Guha, a senior TMC leader doubling up as the North Bengal Development department minister, it remained a stronghold of Forward Bloc, a Left Front constituent, till 2011.

In the 2021 state polls, Union Minister Nisith Pramanik of the BJP narrowly defeated Guha, highlighting the party’s growing influence in the region. Guha staged a comeback that year after Pramanik vacated the seat to retain his position in the Lok Sabha.

8. Kolkata Port

Considered one of the politically significant seats, Kolkata Port, located in the western fringes of the city bordering the Hooghly river, includes densely populated neighbourhoods and a significant presence of minority voters.

The seat is represented by TMC’s Firhad Hakim, who won the constituency in the 2021 edition of the polls by a comfortable margin. Kolkata Port has remained a TMC stronghold, but opposition parties, including the BJP and Congress, have attempted to make inroads.

Given its demographic composition, political visibility, and the prominence of its sitting MLA, the constituency is expected to attract significant attention during poll campaigns.

9. Baruipur Paschim

Represented by Speaker Biman Banerjee since 2011, Baruipur Paschim seat, part of Jadavpur Lok Sabha segment, has long remained a TMC fortress.

However, recent trends indicate a growing challenge from the BJP and the CPI(M) in the area.

According to electoral data, the constituency has over 2.32 lakh registered voters, with Muslim voters accounting for over 30 per cent of the electorate.

Despite the TMC’s dominance, the opposition has steadily expanded its vote share over the years. The BJP turned out as a significant challenger in recent elections, securing 27.97 per cent of the vote in the 2021 Assembly election, while the CPI(M), once a dominant force in the region, continues to retain pockets of support.

10. Asansol Dakshin

Situated in the industrial belt of Paschim Bardhaman district, this seat represents the urban and coal-mining heartland of western Bengal. The constituency is currently represented by BJP’s Agnimitra Paul since 2021.

With its mix of industrial workers, traders and urban middle-class voters, the seat often mirrors political shifts in the wider Asansol-Durgapur industrial region.

(With agency inputs)