‘Street Fighter’ Mamata Banerjee Seeks Fourth Term Riding on Anti-SIR, Bengali Identity Campaign: Will it Be Enough? |
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On Monday (April 27) as campaigning for the 2026 West Bengal assembly elections drew to a close, chief minister Mamata Banerjee returned to the streets, as she marched almost nine kilometres across South Kolkata to make a final appeal to voters. The march began in Jadavpur, where Banerjee had contested her first election, becoming an MP in 1984, and ended in Bhabanipur, from where the chief minister is seeking a fourth straight term. As supporters lined the streets, waved from windows and balconies, many of whom were women, Banerjee walked in her now signature style but not before making it clear to voters what this election was about.
“This time it is necessary to vote to protect your own rights. The way in which they have made you stand in line due to the SIR (Special Intensive Revision), this humiliation can be answered only through your vote,” she said to the crowd gathered along the road in Jadavpur.
This assembly election in West Bengal is like no other. Conducted under the shadow of the SIR of electoral rolls by the Election Commission, the electorate in the state has shrunk by about 12%, with about 90 lakh fewer voters than in 2021. Crucially, over 27 lakh voters were left to appeal to tribunals, as minor clerical errors resulted in their names being deleted from the rolls in an unprecedented instance of disenfranchisement.
Facing anti-incumbency after 15 years of being in the government, Banerjee has sought to set aside the questions of widespread corruption that her government has come to be synonymous with, along with lack of development and increasing unemployment, and made the election campaign about Bengali identity. An identity, that needs to be protected from the onslaught of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-a party of “outsiders” that has unleashed through the Election Commission, an exercise that has sought to take away the constitutional right to vote. In the last five months, since the SIR exercise started in the state, Banerjee has become the first chief minister to appear in the Supreme Court against the exercise, hold a five-day dharna in Kolkata and has repeatedly accused the Election Commission of being a “BJP agent”. That the BJP too has led a communally charged polarisation campaign focused on weeding out alleged illegal infiltrators through the SIR, and sent the CRPF, CAPF, NIA, Enforcement Directorate and CBI to the state in the midst of the election, has further allowed Banerjee to highlight sub-regional Bengali identity under attack, and lead a campaign that has historical ties in the state-that of Delhi versus Bengal.
“This election was supposed to be very challenging for Banerjee because of the anti-incumbency of the last 15 years. There were two significant civil society movements that were seen for the first time since 2011 which saw common people rallying against her government,” said a senior journalist in Kolkata, who has been covering politics in the state for over two decades.
“This included the 2024 R.G. Kar rape and murder which raised questions over women’s safety and saw widespread statewide protests, and the West Bengal SSC (School Service Commission) recruitment which also saw thousands take to the streets. The welfare schemes piloted by the TMC government including Kanyashree, Lakshmir Bhandar also had their limitations come to the fore because of the lack of jobs and development that would cause these schemes to result in quantifiable outcomes.”
The TMC government also faced after the Supreme Court struck down the OBC (Other Backward........