Himanta’s ‘Mia’ label stuck on Congress, voters turned away. india news
Guwahati: Double blow at the top. Defeated by Gaurav Gogoi and Debabrata Saikia. A campaign based on sharp attacks – including on the CM’s family – and demands for justice for Zubeen Garg. Very little to show on the ballot. The Congress is left with a narrow, largely Muslim-dominated base and shrinking reach in Assam.The party won 19 seats – all Muslim-majority constituencies. Its footprint, once tight to the pockets once shared with the AIUDF, has now faded, giving the Congress a consolidated but limited vote bank.cm Himanta Biswa SarmaThe process of continuously sending messages appears to have ended. He branded the Congress a ‘Miya’ party – a term for the Bengali-speaking Muslims of Bangladesh. The label stuck, weakening the Congress’s ability to expand among indigenous tribal and Hindu voters.Delimitation in 2023 further aggravated the problem. Muslim-dominated seats dropped from 35 to 22, limiting the party’s electoral scope. Muslims account for about 30% of the Assam electorate – about 75 lakh voters – and remain influential in these constituencies, but the concentration has left the Congress politically isolated.Lately the six-party alliance failed to change the momentum. Losses in upper and northern Assam underlined the decline. Assam Congress chief Gogoi and opposition leader Saikia – sons of former CMs Tarun Gogoi and Hiteshwar Saikia respectively – both lost in their family strongholds.This decision is tough for Congress. The path to comeback lies through constituencies it no longer controls.The restlessness within the Congress came to the surface. Gogoi did not comment. Party’s Ripun Bora promised a review. “EMV manipulation is possible – the results do not match Gen Z’s anger over the delay in justice for Zubeen or the fury over price hikes,” he said, adding that many people would question the results as the CM had predicted around 100 seats for the NDA, as exit polls showed.
Trinamool Congress It was violated on Monday, leading to several high-profile casualties, including party chief Mamata Banerjee.In a shocking upset in 2021 – when it won all 11 Kolkata seats – the Trinamool was reduced to just five seats. The city’s southern suburbs voted for change and handed over their strongholds Jadavpur and Sonarpur to the BJP. However, Kasba remained loyal to the party.The scale of the collapse can be measured by the defeat of senior ministers who were considered the architects of the party’s urban machinery. But Mamta’s loss will be felt the most.Shashi Panja lost to RSS ideologue Purnima Chakraborty in Shyampukur by a margin of 14,633. Similarly, influential power minister Arup Biswas, who was a key organizer in South Kolkata, lost what was once a safe haven – Tollygunge. Actor Papia Adhikari unveiled him.The city’s administrative leadership also faced a public trial. Kolkata Deputy Mayor Atin Ghosh lost to BJP’s Ritesh Tiwari from Belgachia-Cossipore area by 1651 votes. The defeat extended to his mayor-in-council colleagues – Debashish Kumar from Rashbehari, who was defeated by BJP’s Swapan Dasgupta, and Debabrata Majumdar from Jadavpur.Sitting MLA and former councilor Ratna Chatterjee lost the Behala West seat to BJP’s oncologist Indranil Khan. The constituency had elected former education minister Partha Chatterjee five times since 2001. However, there were some face-saving victories for TMC. Mayor Firhad Hakim secured Kolkata port, while veteran leader Sobhandeb Chatterjee won Ballygunge. State minister Javed Ahmed Khan won in Kasba and party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh won in Beliaghata for the fourth consecutive time. Veteran politician Nayana Bandyopadhyay won from Chowringhee and Sandipan Saha from Entally.The BJP’s chariot moved into Kashipur-Belgachia, Shyampukur, Maniktala and Jorasanko, which had remained with Trinamool since the ‘change’ in 2011. In Jorasanko, BJP’s Vijay Ojha defeated Trinamool candidate Vijay Upadhyay by a margin of 5,797. In 2021, former Trinamool MLA Vivek Gupta defeated BJP candidate Meena Devi Purohit by 12,743 votes.Maniktala has been a TMC stronghold since 2011 when Sadhan Pandey won. After his death in 2024, his wife Supti Pandey won. This time his daughter Shreya Pandey lost to BJP’s Tapas Roy by 15,644 votes.On the outskirts, Bhangar was won by ISF’s Naushad Siddiqui, who defeated Trinamool’s influential South Kolkata leader Shaukat Mollah. Veteran actress Roopa Ganguly defeated MLA Lovely Maitra in Sonarpur South. In Sonarpur North, BJP’s Debashish Dhar is leading over Trinamool MLA Firdausi Begum by more than 11,000 votes.Trinamool also lost its 15-year strongholds Bidhannagar and Rajarhat Gopalpur. However, TMC managed to retain Rajarhat New Town with Tapash Chatterjee winning by a slim margin.
The strong anti-incumbency wave and the nearly 12% reduction in the voter list due to the SIR process led to the collapse of the Trinamool Congress fortress, leading to a historic victory for the BJP in the state, often seen as the last frontier for the party that has been in power at the Center since 2014.BJP had won 206 seats and was leading on one after securing 45.8% votes. TMC’s vote share declined from 48% to 40.8% in 2021, its 215 seats in the outgoing assembly reduced to 81 (wins and gains till midnight), indicating a sharp move away from the party that had championed Bengal’s fundamentalism over nationalist politics.There could be a huge deficit in votes in some TMC strongholds like South 24 Parganas, East Burdwan and Howrah, as the BJP has won large parts of the state from north to south. The saffron party dominated almost completely in the north and in the south-western districts of Jhargram, Purulia and East Midnapore, the TMC was completely decimated.The fatal blow was the saffron surge among urban and suburban voters in Kolkata and its outskirts – Mamata’s southern fort, where she had 123 seats out of 142. The number dropped to 52 as TMC lost 10 seats in Kolkata (including Mamata’s own Bhawanipur), a large part of North 24 Parganas (including Panihati, where the mother of rape and murder victim RG Kar junior doctor was the BJP candidate) and Howrah.
Alipurduar is a general (unreserved) constituency in Alipurduar district of West Bengal. In 2026, candidates include Suman Kanjilal of Trinamool Congress (TMC), Paritosh Das of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Mrinmoy Sarkar (Papan) of Congress.In the 2021 West Bengal Assembly election, the seat was won by BJP’s Suman Kanjilal, who defeated TMC’s Saurav Chakraborty by a margin of about 16,007 votes, garnering over 1,07,000 votes overall. The result marked a clear victory in a constituency that had previously seen representation from different parties.The constituency consists of Alipurduar Municipality, Railway Junction and several gram panchayats, located close to the Bhutan border with a mix of urban and rural population engaged in trade, services, agriculture and informal economic activities. Key issues include improving infrastructure, better roads, reliable public transport, better drainage and stable power supply. Residents also emphasize the need for improved health services and quality educational facilities, with many traveling outside the constituency to access specialized care or higher education.Voting was held in this constituency on April 23 under Phase 1. Alipurduar district recorded 93.2% voting.
