From flood fury to political assaults: North Bengal heats up ahead of 2026 polls

The political tussle following the deaths of 33 people in floods, landslides in north Bengal on Oct 5, and the subsequent assault on a BJP MP and two MLAs

Kolkata: The political tussle following the deaths of 33 people in floods and landslides in four north Bengal districts on October 5, and the subsequent assault on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP and two MLAs—allegedly by Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers—has set off the race for the local assembly seats months ahead of the 2026 West Bengal polls.

TMC recovered lost ground in the 2021 assembly elections and won 213 of the state’s 294 seats. Yet, the BJP bagged 30 of the 54 seats in north Bengal, although its statewide tally was limited to only 77. (Representative photo)

The BJP controls the majority of the assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies in the north Bengal region, comprising eight of West Bengal’s 23 districts.

“Mamata Banerjee is making futile attempts to reach out to our voters by promising relief and rehabilitation. TMC will fail to make any headway in north Bengal,” Bengal BJP unit president Samik Bhattacharya told HT on Thursday, hours after the chief minister ended her two-day tour of the affected areas.

“Our party leaders are holding relief camps across the region. It remains our impregnable fortress,” Bhattacharya added.

With TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee having said in June that the BJP will not win more than 50 of Bengal’s 294 seats in 2026, recent poll results make it obvious that the TMC has to focus on the eight north Bengal districts to meet his target.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP set a record in Bengal by bagging 18 of the state’s 42 seats. In north Bengal, it secured seven of the eight seats.

TMC recovered lost ground in the 2021 assembly elections and won 213 of the state’s 294 seats. Yet, the BJP bagged 30 of the 54 seats in north Bengal, although its statewide tally was limited to only 77.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP suffered huge losses and its tally came down to 12, but it still retained six of the eight north Bengal seats.

Since 2019, the BJP has banked on north Bengal, where a sizable number of seats are reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities. Some BJP leaders even supported local demands for a separate state in the region. The TMC called it a “conspiracy” to divide Bengal for political gains.

The tussle resurfaced on October 6 when Mamata Banerjee countered Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attack on her government, hours after the assault on Malda North Lok Sabha member Khagen Murmu at the Nagrakata (ST) assembly constituency in the Alipurduar (ST) Lok Sabha seat, both of which are in BJP’s control.

Darjeeling district’s Siliguri MLA Shankar Ghosh, who was accompanying Murmu, suffered a few blows as well.

“The manner in which our party colleagues, including a sitting MP and MLA, were attacked in West Bengal for serving the people affected by floods and landslides is outright appalling,” the PM wrote on X.

Hitting back, Banerjee wrote: “It’s also evident that BJP is resorting to the tired North Bengal vs South Bengal narrative, hoping to polarise people ahead of elections. Let us be clear: Bengal is one – emotionally, culturally, and politically.”

After Manoj Oraon, another north Bengal BJP MLA, was assaulted in his Kumargram (ST) constituency on October 7, Banerjee suggested that the incidents could be a fallout of infighting in the saffron camp.

“You first see whether it (the attack on Murmu) has something to do with your internal matters because the local MP and MLA belong to BJP,” she told the media on October 8, while TMC’s north Bengal leaders said the attacks were the fallout of mass outrage, as the BJP MLAs and MPs never visited their constituencies.

TMC spokesperson Jay Prakash Majumdar argued that in 2021 the multi-phase assembly polls started with north Bengal, and the BJP successfully used a campaign to create a notion that it would come to power.

“It can’t be denied that they have more MLAs in north Bengal than TMC, but their vote share in the region came down in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. BJP could not keep its organisation consolidated. One of the reasons was that several TMC and CPI(M) turncoats joined the BJP. Shankar Ghosh and Khagen Murmu both were CPI(M) leaders,” Majumdar told HT.

“Over the last five years, the state government carried out many development projects specifically designed for north Bengal. As a result, TMC did exceptionally well in the panchayat and civic body polls,” Majumdar added.

Meanwhile, Kolkata-based political science professor and poll analyst Udayan Bandopadhyay pointed to signs of weakness in the BJP’s organisation. “BJP’s vote share has come down because people seem to have realised that it cannot dethrone the TMC. The BJP’s organisational weakness was apparent in the Nagrakata incident,” said Bandopadhyay.

“The video footage stunned me. Not only were the BJP’s local Lok Sabha MP and MLA absent, not a single BJP worker was around when Ghosh and Murmu were attacked. This is unthinkable in Bengal’s political culture,” he added.