BJP’s Subhendu Adhikari has defeated Mamata Banerjee in Bhawanipur seat. Mamta lost this election by 15,105 votes. Let us know about those six reasons, which became the reason for Mamata’s defeat in Bhawanipur…
Bhawanipur seat in West Bengal has been considered the stronghold of Mamata Banerjee. Even before this, this seat has been very important in the politics of Bengal. Bhawanipur itself gave Bengal its first Congress Chief Minister in the form of Siddharth Shankar Roy in the year 1970. At the same time, prominent faces of Trinamool Congress, Subrata Mukherjee and Shobhondev Chattopadhyay also contested from the same seat. Now TMC has suffered the biggest blow on this seat. BJP’s Subhendu Adhikari has defeated Mamata Banerjee. Mamta lost this election by 15,105 votes. Let us know about those six reasons, which became the reason for Mamata’s defeat in Bhawanipur…
Effect of anti-incumbency wave
Anti-incumbency is such a factor that if it is against any government then even its safest seat is no longer safe. Something similar has happened this time with Mamata Banerjee. This is the Bhawanipur seat which was a safe seat for Mamata in 2021. His close friend Shobhandev Chattopadhyay had resigned to free the place for Didi. Then Mamta contested elections here and reached the assembly. But by the third term, this seat was no longer safe for Mamata and she had to pay the price by losing.
Shubhendu Adhikari Factor
On the TMC side, Mamta was the CM face. But BJP had not declared any face in this election. Despite this, Amit Shah instructed Subhendu Adhikari to contest against Mamata. In fact, Shubhendu had already defeated Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram. In such a situation, the top leadership of BJP had an idea that if anyone has the courage to defeat Mamata, it is Shubhendu Adhikari. This factor worked and Mamata had to face defeat in her stronghold.
Big decline in vote share
Another thing that went against Mamata Banerjee was the decline in her vote share. While Mamata Banerjee’s vote share was 72 percent in 2021, her vote percentage dropped to 42 percent in 2026. This clearly shows that Mamata’s vote bank shifted towards BJP. Mamta continued campaigning for her candidates on other seats in Bengal, but her own ground slipped in Bhawanipur. However, its glimpse was visible in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections itself. Then, out of eight wards of Bhawanipur, five wards went in favor of BJP.
BJP’s strategy
BJP had made a special strategy regarding Bhawanipur. BJP created an election environment against the fear of TMC. This strategy of his also worked. BJP completely avoided personal attacks against Mamata. He completely focused on change and vision in Bengal. On the other hand, voters kept talking about change. People remained vocal about corruption and fear being spread by TMC. There was a lot of anger among the people because the lower level leaders of TMC misused the power of the party.
What is the role of SIR?
SIR was also an important factor. Voter lists were cleaned through SIR across Bengal and bogus voters were removed. Till now, the tampered voter list has been acting as a weapon for the outgoing governments. Be it Left or TMC, everyone misused it a lot. But this time after the improvement in the voter list, TMC’s claim in Bhawanipur weakened.
Impact of RGKar incident
This was the first election in Bengal after the RGKar rape and murder case. In a precise strategy, BJP pitted RGKar victim Mang Ratna Debnath against TMC candidate. After this, people’s attention again came towards this very painful incident that happened in the government hospital. The already enraged people became more enraged. At the same time, it further helped in creating an atmosphere against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
