The Trinamool Congress (TMC) will contest 291 of West Bengal’s 294 assembly seats in the two-phase polls, chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced on Tuesday, dropping a significant number of sitting legislators and nominating a set of fresh faces in a bid to nix anti-incumbency and win a fourth consecutive term. West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee is contest the 2026 assembly polls from the Bhabanipur seat against BJP's Suvendu Adhikari. (HT/PTI)
In a press conference at her Kalighat home, Banerjee fielded Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Suvendu Adhikari’s aide Pabitra Kar - who quit the BJP hours before her announcement—against him at East Midnapore district’s Nandigram seat.
She also set up a face-off against Adhikari – a repeat of their 2021 battle in Nandigram that Adhikari won by 1,956 votes – by announcing that she will be seeking re-election from her traditional seat of Bhawanipore in south Kolkata. A day before, the BJP fielded Adhikari from both Nandigram and Bhawanipore.
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“We will win more than 226 seats in 2026. This is our firm belief. Boycott BJP. Vote for Bangla, vote for TMC,” Banerjee said.
“I have complete faith in the people of Bhawanipore. I work for these people 365 days a year,” Banerjee said when asked if she considered Adhikari a formidable challenger.
“We are not contesting three seats, Darjeeling Kalimpong and Kurseong, in the hills. We have an understanding with Anit Thapa’s party. They will contest,” she added.
Thapa’s party, the Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha which runs the local Gorkha Territorial Administration (GTA), named its three candidates on Sunday, when the poll schedule was announced.
The TMC fielded 78 members from the scheduled caste (SC) community, 17 from scheduled tribes (ST), 47 Muslims and 55 women. It dropped 74 sitting lawmakers and shifted 15 others to new seats.
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Earlier on Tuesday, Kar, a BJP leader from Nandigram, accepted the TMC flag from national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee who embraced him. Adhikari did not react to this.
TMC leaders said Kar played a key role for the BJP in 2021 when Banerjee left her Bhawanipore seat and unsuccessfully contested against Adhikari in Nandigram. She fought a by-election in Kolkata after the TMC’s landslide victory in 2021 to lead the government.
The chief minister and Abhishek Banerjee took turns announcing the candidate list. For the first time in the TMC’s 15-year tenure, the party did not field new movie stars. Instead, two actor-turned-MLAs, Chiranjit Chakraborty (Barasat’s three-time winner) and Uttarpara MLA Kanchan Mallick were dropped.
On the other hand, Arjuna awardee athlete Swapna Barman, who won gold in the 2018 Asian Games, was fielded from the Rajganj (SC) seat in Jalpaiguri district while the TMC dropped its four-time winner, Khageswar Roy.
The party also attempted to have a balance between age and experience. “Four of our candidates are aged below 31 while 38 are aged between 31 and 40. There are 88 people in the 41-50 age group, 89 in the 51-60 category and 47 are aged between 61 and 70 years. We also have 23 candidates aged between 71 and 80 years and two in the 81-90 age group,” Abhishek Banerjee said.
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Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah have repeatedly focused on various corruption cases in which several Bengal ministers and MLAs face Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) probes, the TMC leadership exercised caution while finalising the list, party leaders said.
Former education minister Partha Chatterjee, a sitting MLA and prime suspect in the teacher recruitment case, was not fielded from his Behala West seat in Kolkata. Instead, the TMC fielded Ratna Chatterjee, the estranged wife of former Kolkata mayor and Narada sting operation suspect Sovon Chatterjee, although he returned to the TMC last year after a brief stint in the BJP.
Similarly, MLA Jiban Krishna Saha, who was arrested by CBI in 2023 and by ED in 2025 in the same case, was replaced by a female candidate, Pratima Rajak, at his Burwan (SC) seat in Murshidabad district.
West Bengal Medical Council president Dr Sudipta Kumar Roy, who was questioned by ED in 2024 after the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical Hospital, was dropped. He has won Hooghly district’s Sreerampur seat four times since 2009.
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On the other hand, former minister Jyotiopriya Mallick – who was arrested by ED in 2023 in the alleged public distribution system corruption case and granted bail last year – was fielded from Habra, his old seat.
TMC state general secretary and spokesperson Kunal Ghosh, who was in judicial custody from 2013 to 2016 in the Saradha Group financial scam, was fielded from Kolkata’s Beleghata. Senior journalist Devdeep Purohit was fielded from Khardaha.
TMC took some calculated risks as well.
Booth-level analysis of the 2024 Lok Sabha poll results showed that the TMC trailed BJP in 47 of Kolkata’s 144 municipal corporation wards. The TMC also lost in two assembly segments - Shyampukur and Jorasanko - where non-Bengalis, especially Hindi speakers, comprise a sizable chunk of voters.
TMC trailed BJP by around 1,600 votes at Shyampukur, the constituency represented by industry minister Shashi Panja, a close aide of Mamata Banerjee. However, she was fielded again.
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TMC also trailed by 7,400 votes in the Jorasanko assembly seat, which Vivek Gupta won in 2021. Vijay Upadhyay replaced Gupta this year.
Mamata Banerjee said she wanted to represent people from all sections and backgrounds.
“The new faces represent a new generation. Women, SC, ST all have to be given opportunity,” Banerjee said. She also appeared to take a shot at chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. “Some people are playing a nice game on behalf of the BJP…the person behind these transfers should directly contest the elections and campaign for the BJP,” she said.
“BJP and the Election Commission have to take the responsibility for all law and order problems. You transferred our police officers and bureaucrats and placed those who will help you smuggle in money and arms. I am telling the Prime Minister. The more you insult Bengal’s people the harder they will hit back,” she added.
Bengal BJP’s chief spokesperson Debjit Sarkar said, “Nandigram voters will not forgive Pabitra Kar for conspiring against the BJP. People have made up their minds. TMC will be defeated.”