Congress goes solo in Bengal: Can it upset Mamata’s electoral arithmetic?

West Bengal Elections 2026 | The Congress will contest all 294 Assembly seats in West Bengal on its own, a move that could upset the Trinamool Congress’s electoral arithmetic under Mamata Banerjee. The party on Sunday released its first list of 284 candidates, fielding Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury from Baharampur and former TMC MP Mausam Noor from Malatipur.

Must Read: Battle for Bengal: What BJP’s candidate lists show so far

Congress in Bengal: A shrinking base, a fresh gamble

The Congress enters the contest after a decade of declining relevance in West Bengal. Since 2016, it has fought elections largely in alliance with the Left but has struggled to convert that into electoral gains.

In 2016, despite winning 44 seats – more than the CPI(M)’s 26 – the Congress secured only 12.25 per cent vote share, far behind the Left’s 19.75 per cent. The TMC won 211 seats with 44.9 per cent vote share.

The slide deepened in subsequent elections. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, contesting alone for the first time since 2006, the Congress won only two of 40 seats with a vote share of 5.67 per cent. In the 2021 assembly elections, it contested 91 seats but failed to win any, with its vote share falling to 2.93 per cent.

For the Congress, the solo gamble carries limited downside, but a strong performance could reopen political space in Bengal.

Must Read: Nandigram wasn’t the end? Suvendu Adhikari takes fight to Mamata Banerjee’s turf Bhabanipur

Where Congress still matters

Despite the decline, the party retains pockets of influence in districts such as Malda, Murshidabad and Uttar Dinajpur.

“In the Congress stronghold areas of Malda, Murshidabad and Uttar Dinajpur, we are the leading opposition party, and we will win our seats on our own might,” Ranajit Mukherjee, a member of the Political Affairs Committee of the West Bengal unit of the Congress, told ThePrint in February.

The Malda region was once a Congress bastion. Here, the grand old party won 25 of 49 seats in 2011 with a 31.6 per cent vote share. Even in 2016, it held on to 26 seats with 29.1 per cent of the votes, despite the TMC’s statewide surge.

However, in 2021, the TMC’s vote share in the district rose to 52.4 per cent, winning 38 seats, while the BJP secured 30.2 per cent and 11 seats. The Congress and the Left failed to win a single seat.

The arithmetic of vote splits

Electoral trends over the past decade show that the decline of the Congress and the Left has largely benefited the TMC and the BJP.

In the 2021 assembly polls, 223 of the 294 seats were won by margins exceeding 10,000 votes, with the TMC taking 176 and the BJP 46, according to an analysis by India Today. 

In another 33 seats, the victory margin was between 5,000 and 10,000 votes. Among these, TMC bagged 24 and the BJP 9. The remaining 36 seats had a margin of less than 5,000 votes. The BJP won 22 of them, while the TMC got 13 seats, and one seat, Kalimpong, went to an Independent candidate.

Analysts indicate that if Congress is able to draw even 5–10 per cent of votes away from the TMC, it could help the BJP expand its tally beyond the 77 seats it won in 2021 with a vote share of 38.1 per cent.

Minority vote in flux

A key factor in this election is the roughly 30 per cent minority vote, which influences outcomes in more than 114 constituencies. For the first time in over a decade, multiple parties are competing for this segment.

Alongside the Congress, players such as the Indian Secular Front (ISF) led by Nawsad Siddique and an alliance between AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi and Humayun Kabir’s party are seeking to expand their presence in districts like Murshidabad and Malda.

The entry of these players may potentially fragment a vote base that has historically consolidated behind the TMC.