Bhabanipur was supposed to be the seat of reassurance. For Mamata Banerjee, it was not merely another constituency in Kolkata but the political ground that had restored her authority after the 2021 Nandigram defeat. In the 2021 bypoll, she had won here by a commanding margin of more than 58,000 votes, reinforcing the widespread belief that Bhabanipur was her safest political bastion. That is precisely why the result of the 2026 West Bengal Assembly election has sent such a deep shock through Bengal’s political landscape. On May 4, BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari defeated Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur by a margin of a little over 15,000 votes, turning what had long been seen as her fortress into the site of one of the most symbolic setbacks of her political career. This was not merely the loss of a seat. It was the collapse of a political assumption that Bhabanipur would remain immune even if the wider mood of Bengal shifted.
