Kolkata: With political sabre-rattling gathering pace ahead of the 2026 Bengal Assembly elections, the Jadavpur Assembly constituency — once a Left bastion — is bracing for a high-stakes contest, largely centred around a former Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) Mayor and a sitting corporator.
Spread across around 10 KMC wards, the Jadavpur Assembly seat — part of the Jadavpur Lok Sabha Constituency — has a significant presence of refugee colony areas that emerged after 1947 and 1971, shaping its socio-political character.
Historically, the Constituency has seen sharp political swings. The first major breach in the Left stronghold came in 1984, when Mamata Banerjee, then a Congress candidate, defeated CPM leader Somnath Chatterjee in the Lok Sabha polls. However, the Left regained ground in 1989 with Malini Bhattacharya’s victory — marking Banerjee’s last attempt from the seat.
At the Assembly level, former Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya held sway for multiple terms until the 2011 regime change, when Trinamool Congress fielded Manish Gupta, a former chief secretary under Bhattacharya, to wrest control. Since then, the seat has oscillated between the Left and the Trinamool.
The 2026 contest is expected to be primarily between CPM’s Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya — former Kolkata mayor and senior advocate of the Calcutta High Court — and sitting MLA Debabrata Mazumder of the Trinamool Congress, also a KMC councillor and member of the Mayor’s council. The BJP has fielded Sarbori Mukherjee, a Bengali television actress. Electoral trends suggest the BJP may again remain on the margins. In the 2021 Assembly elections, the contest in Jadavpur was largely bipolar: Trinamool’s Debabrata Mazumder secured 98,100 votes (45.54 per cent), while CPM’s Sujan Chakraborty polled 59,231 votes (27.50 per cent). The BJP’s Rinku Naskar trailed with 53,199 votes (24.67 per cent), indicating the party remained a distant third.
On the ground, Bhattacharya has foregrounded allegations of “misgovernance”, drawing from his legal engagements, including representing candidates in cases linked to the school recruitment scam. Mazumder, on the other hand, is banking on state welfare schemes and civic services delivered by the KMC. Civic issues remain a persistent concern. Residents flag problems such as inadequate supply of filtered drinking water, illegal constructions and allegations of coercion linked to the promoter business.
The political undercurrent is further complicated by organisational challenges within the Trinamool. Sources indicate resistance from a section of party workers to Mazumder’s candidature, potentially weakening his position.
Echoing the 2021 cycle — when Assembly polls were followed by KMC elections — the Constituency may again witness overlapping narratives, with civic polls scheduled for December. Against this backdrop, Jadavpur appears set for a closely watched contest where governance, organisation and legacy politics will shape the outcome.