In West Bengal, the excitement of elections practically begins from the time parties announce their candidates in the 294 Assembly constituencies. Traditionally, the announcements are marked by high drama, surprise and strife, jubilation and despair, and parting and reconciliation in equal measure. The 2026 Assembly elections have proved to be no exception to this rule, as anger and protests have erupted across the state in the camps of both the ruling Trinamool Congress and its main opponent, the BJP.

The Trinamool Congress, struggling against rising anti-incumbency sentiment and apprehensive about the impact the deletion of around 76 lakh voters (including final deletions and those under adjudication, as of March 27) in the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls will have in its strongholds, is now facing outbreaks of rebellion over the selection of candidates in different parts of the state. Apart from open dissent in the ranks, senior leaders are threatening to sever ties with the party, some even threatening to take on Trinamool either as Independents or by joining forces with the opposition in the upcoming elections.

The most serious accusation levelled against the Trinamool top leadership and its election strategist, I-PAC, is that deserving candidates were cast aside in favour of those offering large amounts of money for election tickets. Khageswar Roy, four-time MLA from Rajganj in Jalpaiguri district in north Bengal, alleged that he “lost to money” when he was dropped and Asian Games (2018) gold medallist Swapna Barman was given the ticket. “Someone must have given money, that is why my name was dropped,” said Roy, who has been an old campaigner for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. He predicted that Trinamool would lose the Rajganj seat in the coming polls. However, subsequently, he made peace with the party and pledged to support the party’s choice.

Similarly, former Cabinet Minister from Cooch Behar and two-time MLA from Natabari, Rabindra Nath Ghosh, hinted with sadness at retiring from politics after he was denied the Natabari seat and was instead offered the neighbouring Tuganganj constituency. This was apparently unacceptable to Ghosh, who had lost the Natabari seat to the BJP in 2021. “I did not want to leave the people of Natabari and contest from somewhere else... I was hoping I would get a final ticket and retire with dignity. But that was not my fate,” said Ghosh. His close aide, Khokon Mian, bid an emotional farewell to Trinamool and, with apparent tears in his eyes, returned to his old party, the Congress.

The sitting MLA from Purbasthali Uttar constituency, Tapan Chattopadhyay, openly accused I-PAC of demanding money from him in order for him to re-contest the seat. “If I could give the money, then I would have been given the ticket. I-PAC wanted (money),” said Chattopadhyay. He alleged that an I-PAC official had demanded, by hand gesture, Rs 20 lakh from him. In Hooghly, heavyweight Trinamool leader Asit Majumdar, who had won the Chuchura seat three times on the trot, was dropped. He announced that he was retiring from politics altogether.

From the north of the State to the south, complaints, allegations and grievances have been pouring in from Trinamool workers and supporters. Tajmul Hossain, who had wrested the Harischandrapur seat in Malda from the Congress in 2021, could not understand why Md Matebur Rahman, who had recently defected from the BJP, was given the ticket and not him. “We have been working for the party most dedicatedly, and someone suddenly joins and is given the ticket to contest. I find it surprising that one who is not with the people and knows nothing about the party has been asked to contest. Even when he was with the BJP, the people had rejected him...” said Tajmul.

Similarly, in the once Congress-dominated district of Murshidabad, Manirul Islam, who had broken the iron hold the Congress had on the Farakka seat by defeating five-time MLA Mainul Haque in 2021, was enraged at being overlooked this time. Undeterred, he announced he would still contest the election. “Today, I have been made the sacrificial lamb. But I can tell you one thing, the people of Farakka are in my heart as I am in theirs, and in the coming days, I will contest from Farakka,” said Manirul. Interestingly, in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Trinamool was trailing behind the Congress both in the Harischandrapur and the Farakka Assembly segments. Abdul Razzak, the three-time MLA from Jalangi (twice with a CPI(M) ticket and once with Trinamool) in Murshidabad, could not hide his astonishment when his party announced that Babar Ali, the celebrated young educator, was given the ticket instead of him. “He was given a ticket within two hours of joining the party. The people of Jalangi feel insulted by this,” said Razzak.

For the 2026 Assembly election, the top Trinamool leadership appeared ruthless as far as dropping names from the candidates’ list was concerned. Around 74 sitting MLAs were denied tickets, and the constituencies of 15 MLAs were changed. According to a source in Trinamool, the entire selection process was based strictly on the performance of the existing MLAs in the last five years. “Many old-timers and party loyalists were not given tickets this time. With the deletions due to SIR, there is a lot of uncertainty, and the party leadership is not taking any chances. That is why a powerful leader like Krishnendu Narayan Chowdhury was not given a ticket from Englishbazar,” the source told Frontline. Though Chowdhury had lost the Englishbazar seat to the BJP in 2021, he is nevertheless widely acknowledged as one of the most able political organisers in Malda district.

While some of the leaders, like Chowdhury, have accepted the party decision with stoicism, the supporters and party workers owing allegiance to those who have been dropped have hit the streets in protest in different parts of the State. Bhangar (South 24 Parganas), Amdanga (North 24 Parganas), Khandaghosh, Memari and Monteswar (Purba Bardhaman), Nandigram (Purba Medinipur), are just some of the places where ordinary Trinamool party workers have openly voiced their dissent against their leadership’s decision.

Trouble in BJP camp too

However, the BJP had little scope to be smug about what was happening in the Trinamool camp. No sooner had its second list come out than protests and agitations broke out within the BJP ranks. What can be worrying for the saffron party is that several of the constituencies where its workers are aggrieved happen to be strong seats for the party. In Khejuri, Purba Medinipur, not only did the BJP win the seat in 2021, but it also further consolidated its position in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, where it secured around 10 percentage points more than Trinamool. Protesting against the selection of the candidate Subrata Paik, a BJP worker said, “He is not only uneducated but also undeserving and not transparent... The agitation that you are seeing is just the tip of the iceberg. We are going to go for a bigger agitation.”

The BJP workers in North 24 Parganas have also voiced reservations about the selection of Rekha Patra as their candidate from Hingalganj. Patra, who became a symbol of resistance against the alleged oppression of women by miscreants of the ruling party in Sandeshkhali, is not an acceptable face in Hingalganj. Though Trinamool won the seat in the 2021 Assembly election, in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the BJP had managed to close the gap. A group of BJP workers from Hingalganj staged an agitation outside the party office in Salt Lake, demanding that a local resident be selected as the candidate. “Rekha may be an important figure in Sandeshkhali, but she is an outsider in Hingalganj. Moreover, after being defeated in the Lok Sabha election, she completely dropped out of the scene,” said one of the protesters. There were similar agitations against the candidates selected for Burwan (Murshidabad), Beleghata (Kolkata) and other seats.

At a time when the Trinamool and the BJP are locked in a battle that so far appears evenly poised, neither party can afford internal strife that can sabotage their prospects. If the SIR-related deletion of voters’ names has thrown all pre-poll predictions to the wind, the rebellions within the two main opponents have added to the prevailing uncertainty.

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