Bengal First Phase Polls: Disruptors And The End of Easy Mandate
Voters in Bengal head into elections with a subdued mood, shaped by concerns over fairness, past controversies, and growing uncertainty rather than usual campaign noise.
Published : April 21, 2026 at 9:30 PM IST
|Updated : April 22, 2026 at 10:48 PM IST
On the surface, election season is supposed to be loud with slogans, rallies, and urgency. But in Bengal, especially across districts like Murshidabad and Malda, among others, which goes to the polls in the first phase on April 23, the mood feels unusually restrained.
It does not feel like the districts are ready to queue outside booths to merely vote. Rather, people are carrying a quiet accumulation of unsettled questions about leadership, loyalty, and increasingly, about fairness.
People are not just preparing to vote. They are trying to understand what their votes represent. This Assembly election in Bengal is not just being fought in rallies and roadshows. It is also being fought in memory.
Particularly, the memory of a system that many believe failed them. Over the past few years, the school recruitment scam has travelled a long distance from courtrooms to conversation. What was once a dispute over lists, procedures had hardened into something far more political, that of gross violation of norms and more importantly, nepotism.
Across the 16 poll-bound districts, the stories are strikingly similar. Candidates who spent years preparing, found themselves edged out by opaque processes. Others who did secure positions, now face the uncertainty of those same appointments being invalidated.
The result is a peculiar dual anxiety, that of exclusion and insecurity coexisting within the same group. Coupled with that is the question of safety, especially of the women, triggered since the RG Kar rape and murder incident which had rocked the nation.
And this group matters electorally.
This is the atmosphere in which voters across 152 Assembly seats will queue up outside polling booths on April 23 to cast their vote in the first phase of Bengal Assembly election.
In Baharampur, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury continues to do what he has always done - show up, speak plainly, and offer help. For years, that worked. Politics, after all, was about access. Only this time voters seem to be asking a slightly different question, what if access is not the solution, but part of the problem?
Adhir still carries memory. But memory, like old currency, is being examined a little more carefully across Baharampur this time.
Adhir's appeal remains intensely personal. For a section of voters, especially the older generation, he is still the man who 'stood up when it mattered.' But his own words, "It's a tough fight… many have left, but I am fighting with those who remain," acknowledge a thinning ecosystem.
The Congress base in Baharampur has not collapsed, but it has been steadily eroded, first by Trinamool and then by the BJP. The fight for Baharampur is not just a contest, it is a referendum on whether legacy can still compete with political machinery and chance.
And it is precisely this gap between anger and articulation that leaders like Dilip Ghosh attempt to occupy.
In the Kharagpur Sadar seat, dominated by a massive Railway establishment, Dilip Ghosh is not just contesting an election. He is, in a way, revisiting a past version of himself. Ghosh has his trademark lack of hesitation and does not do nuance. He does clarity, the kind that cuts through noise and also occasionally adds to it.
In 2019, that clarity rode a wave. The BJP surged, and Ghosh became one of its most recognisable voices in Bengal. In 2021, the wave met resistance. In 2024, it lingered, but without the same certainty of expansion.
So what does Dilip Ghosh bring into 2026? Memory, mostly. The memory of when things were moving his way and the argument that they still could. His politics works best when anger needs direction. The contest is less about reclaiming space and more about retaining it.
For Dilip Ghosh, the challenge is different. Rapid political ascent, visibility beyond the constituency, and proximity to national power can all strengthen a candidate’s profile. But, they also raise expectations.
The question voters pose is not about access to higher authority, but about whether that access translates into tangible and equitable outcomes, locally.
If Kharagpur Sadar is about revisiting known ground, Mathabhanga in North Bengal is about holding it.
Nisith Pramanik's rise from a regional figure to a national minister tracks neatly with the BJP’s ambitions in Bengal. In 2019, he was part of the breakthrough. In 2021, North Bengal became a stronghold. By 2024, the margins tightened, and the story became less about expansion and more about retention.
Pramanik’s pitch is subtle, but he knows proximity to power matters. He offers access, visibility, and a sense that the constituency is plugged into something larger. In a reserved seat where agrarian realities, local identity and case equations run deep, Pramanik brings into 2026 not just organisational backing, but a certain kind of political signaling of upward mobility, of access to central power, of a bridge between local aspiration and national visibility.
Yet, that very positioning carries risk. In an election shaped by questions of fairness and process, proximity to power can cut both ways. It can reassure voters of influence, but it can also sharpen expectations.
The question before Pramanik is whether he is seen as someone who can deliver within the system or merely someone who has successfully navigated it.
Across Adhir's Baharampur, where legacy is under strain, Mausam Benazir Noor represents a calculated disruption. Her candidature in Malda's Malatipur is not a mere return to Congress, it is a strategic re-entry into a space where her surname, legacy, and political memory still carry weight.
Unlike Baharampur where Congress is defending residue, Malatipur offers the party a chance to reconstruct a base and Mausam is central to that attempt. She is not just competing for votes, she is reactivating dormant loyalties while simultaneously confusing established ones. Her long-term positioning reportedly with an eye on the 2029 Lok Sabha battle adds another layer. This is not a short-term contest for her, it is groundwork.
Mausam's strength lies in her ability to fragment the existing bipolarity of the Trinamool Congress and BJP. Having been part of both Congress and Trinamool, she understands the internal fault lines of each. In an election where many voters are still deciding what 'change' actually means, that kind of positioning can travel further than expected. Mausam’s presence ensures that the outcome cannot be easily predicted by past trends.
Then there is Humayun Kabir, a figure who thrives on unpredictability, but now finds himself trapped in it. His journey across parties has culminated in the creation of his own political outfit the AJUP and an endeavour over constructing a mosque, but a controversial sting video has cast a long shadow.
In the footage, he appears to suggest that consolidating Muslim votes for himself would 'automatically' divert Hindu votes to the BJP, a formulation that has sparked outrage and suspicion in equal measure. Whether authentic or not, the narrative damage is real. His earlier assertion, "the entire state's Muslims are with me," now appears overstretched, especially as political allies distance themselves. In seats like Rejinagar and Naoda from where he is contesting, which are already sensitive to communal arithmetic, Kabir risks becoming less a contender and more a variable that others must account for.
Away from North Bengal and Malda-Murshidabad, in Paschim Medinipur's Sabang constituency, Manas Bhuniya represents a different kind of political continuity.
A veteran with roots that run deep, Bhuniya’s candidature for Trinamool Congress is less about disruption and more about consolidation. Sabang has long been his political workshop, and his personal credibility, built over decades, still carries weight across party lines. However, anti-incumbency, even if muted, exists in Sabang.
The BJP continues to probe for openings, and the Congress, though weakened, retains pockets of residual loyalty. Bhuniya’s strength lies in his ability to localise the election, effectively shifting the focus from broader state narratives to constituency-specific delivery. His emphasis on flood control, local infrastructure, and administrative access reflects a strategy of grounding the election in lived experience rather than abstract promises.
Yet, even Sabang is not entirely insulated from the overwhelming mood. The SSC recruitment controversy may not dominate the constituency, but it subtly alters the framework through which governance is judged. It raises questions not just of delivery, but of integrity. Manas Bhuniya is not trying to reinvent the wheel, he is ensuring it does not come off.
And finally, on the banks of the Haldi river, the election sharpens into something far more symbolic.
In Nandigram, Suvendu Adhikari returns to a constituency that, in many ways, redefined Bengal’s political trajectory. His victory here in 2021 over Mamata Banerjee did more than settle a contest. It shifted the balance of power and recast him as the principal face of the opposition in the state.
Five years later, that moment is being revisited under a very different condition. Suvendu is no longer the insurgent. He enters this election as Leader of the Opposition of Bengal, carrying both authority and expectation. Suvendu's contest in Nandigram against Trinamool’s Pabitra Kar, once his political aide —adds a layer of personal history to an already charged field.
Unlike 2021, when the fight was framed as a direct, high-voltage duel between him and Mamata Banerjee, this time the scrutiny is quieter, but sharper. The question is less about disruption and more about durability. Adhikari’s decision to also contest from Bhabanipur in Kolkata, again positioning himself against Mamata Banerjee, extends that question beyond a single constituency. It keeps the contest anchored in rivalry.
But the electorate, as elsewhere, seems less invested in spectacle and more in outcome. Nandigram, therefore, is not just another high-profile seat. It becomes a point of convergence, of memory and mandate.
The first phase of Bengal's Assembly election is not defined by a single wave, but by multiple undercurrents. Trinamool seeks to convert governance into inevitability. The BJP is attempting to aggregate dissatisfaction into momentum. Congress, in pockets like Baharampur and Malatipur, is relying on individuals who can still bend the arc of local politics.
Voters, meanwhile, articulate their dilemma in deceptively simple terms. "This time, we want a complete change," often arrives with a wry smile. But 'change' here is not uniform. For some, it is about shifting power. For others, it is about restoring fairness. And for many, it is about ensuring that effort, whether in education or in everyday life, still has value. As campaigning ends and silence takes hold, what remains is not clarity, but anticipation.
Somewhere between a fractured system and a persistent memory of how things ought to work, the first phase of Bengal polls will be decided. Not by the loudest slogan, but by a quieter calculation of who can be trusted.
And in that calculation, the disruptors - assertive like Dilip Ghosh, aspirational like Nisith Pramanik, seasoned like Adhir Chowdhury, strategic like Mausam Noor, volatile like Humayun Kabir, steady like Manas Bhuniya, or giant killer like Suvendu Adhikari may matter less for what they promise, and more for what voters believe they represent.
