In the narrow lanes and old mansions of Bhabanipur, where Gujarati businessmen, Bengali families, Punjabi households and Muslim residents have lived side by side for decades, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is preparing to send out a political message as layered as the constituency itself.
If BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari’s nomination filing last week, during which he was accompanied by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, was designed as a show of political strength and a saffron call for ‘paribartan’ (change), Ms. Banerjee’s nomination on Wednesday (April 7, 2026) is being choreographed as its ideological counterpoint — a public assertion of Bhabanipur being a “mini India”, and West Bengal’s pluralist identity.
“Normally, we would have to win 170 seats. But if Suvendu Babu defeats Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur, ‘paribartan’ will come automatically,” Mr. Shah had said while accompanying Mr. Adhikari, turning the contest into a prestige battle and the constituency into the symbolic epicentre of the 2026 Assembly polls.
Now, Ms. Banerjee is responding in her own way. According to TMC sources, when the chief minister reaches Alipore’s Survey Building on Wednesday (April 7, 2026) to file her nomination papers, the symbolism will be equally deliberate, though markedly different.
Instead of a message centred on political conquest, the TMC supremo wants her nomination itself to mirror Bhabanipur’s composite social character.
Among those likely to sign her nomination papers are Rubi Hakim, wife of Kolkata Mayor and senior minister Firhad Hakim, TMC block president of Ward 71 Bablu Singh, and Miraj Shah of the Bhabanipur Education Society.
The message is unmistakable: while the BJP pitches the election as one of political change and alleged appeasement versus nationalism, Ms. Banerjee wants to frame it as a battle between polarisation and pluralism.
“Didi wants the nomination itself to reflect Bhabanipur’s character. This is not merely about filing papers. It is also about sending out a message that all communities stand with her,” a senior TMC leader said.
Political parties often describe Bhabanipur as a “mini India”. Bengali middle-class neighbourhoods coexist with large Marwari, Gujarati, Punjabi, Sikh and Jain populations, alongside a sizeable Muslim electorate.
Roughly 42% of the electorate comprises Bengali Hindus, 34% non-Bengali Hindus and around 24% Muslims. In effect, nearly three-fourths of Bhabanipur’s voters are Hindus.
Spread across eight KMC wards, the Bengali-dominated pockets of wards 72 and 82 sit alongside wards 63, 70, 71, 73 and 74, home for generations to Gujarati, Punjabi and Marwari families. Jains have a sizeable presence in the area, while ward number 77 has a large Muslim population.
For Ms. Banerjee, invoking the “mini India” identity is politically important, especially in a constituency where the BJP has been aggressively trying to consolidate Hindi-speaking and non-Bengali voters.
The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has further sharpened the BJP’s calculation. Nearly 47,000 names have reportedly been deleted from the voter list in Bhabanipur, while another 14,000 remain under consideration. More significantly for the BJP, over 56% of those whose names remain under consideration are Muslims, though the community accounts for only around 24 per cent of the electorate.
Bhabanipur is not just another assembly segment for Ms. Banerjee. Her Kalighat residence lies within the constituency and the area has for decades formed part of the Kolkata South Lok Sabha seat from where she had been winning since 1991.
She first contested from Bhabanipur in 2011 after ending the Left Front’s 34-year rule. Ten years later, after the setback in Nandigram, it was Bhabanipur that brought her back to the assembly through a bypoll.
Yet the BJP believes the ground beneath that refuge has shifted. The TMC’s lead in the Bhabanipur assembly segment fell sharply to just 8,297 votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, compared with Ms. Banerjee’s margin of 58,832 in the 2021 bypoll.
More importantly for the BJP, it finished ahead in five of the constituency’s eight wards — 63, 70, 71, 72 and 74 — while the TMC led only in wards 73, 77 and 82.
By fielding Mr. Adhikari — the former TMC strongman who crossed over to the BJP in 2020 and has since emerged as Ms. Banerjee’s fiercest rival — the saffron camp is attempting to convert Bhabanipur into another Nandigram, only this time in the heart of Kolkata.
TMC sources said Ms. Banerjee will lead a colourful procession from Hazra to the Survey Building before filing her papers, accompanied by Subrata Bakshi, Firhad Hakim, Debasish Kumar and local leaders.
Unlike the BJP roadshow dominated by saffron flags and chants of ‘paribartan’, TMC leaders are planning to ensure visible participation from different communities and social groups in the march.
In the coming weeks, Bhabanipur may become the stage for a larger ideological clash — between the BJP’s emphasis on political change and the TMC’s attempt to project the constituency as a symbol of West Bengal’s social diversity.
Published – April 07, 2026 10:44 pm IST
