Five months after storming to power in West Bengal, the BJP passed another test on Friday. Counting ended in the two Assembly bypolls of Nandigram and Rejinagar, and the saffron party won both, one of them by a margin so large it rewrote the record books.
The headline number belongs to Nandigram. BJP candidate Hasirani Rath polled 1,64,427 votes and beat Congress nominee Milan Pradhan by 1,22,753 votes, the highest victory margin in the constituency since 1967. The previous record belonged to Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, who had won Nandigram for the Trinamool Congress in 2016 by 81,230 votes. Pradhan managed 41,674 votes; CPI candidate Santi Gopal Giri came third with 5,779 votes, and every other candidate in the fray lost their deposit.
Nandigram: emotion, memory and a record broken
Nandigram is never just another seat in Bengal politics. The constituency has carried weight ever since the anti-land acquisition movement there helped propel the Trinamool Congress to power in 2011. In 2021 it became the epicentre of the state election when Suvendu Adhikari defeated then chief minister Mamata Banerjee. This year’s bypoll was necessitated because Adhikari, who contested and won both Nandigram and Bhabanipur in the May Assembly elections, chose to retain Bhabanipur.
For Rath, the win carries a personal dimension. She is the mother of Chandranath Rath, the personal assistant of Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari who was shot dead by gunmen in Madhyamgram, on the outskirts of Kolkata, on May 6, two days after the BJP’s historic Assembly victory. The party’s choice of candidate turned the campaign into an emotional referendum, and the verdict suggests voters responded.
Counting began at 8 am amid tight security, and the trend was one-sided from the early rounds. By the final round the margin had crossed 1.22 lakh, and Adhikari himself acknowledged the feat, noting that Rath had gone past even his record.
Rejinagar: the result nobody predicted
If Nandigram was expected, Rejinagar was the real surprise. The Murshidabad district seat, with close to 70 per cent Muslim voters, had been considered hostile ground for the BJP. Instead, BJP candidate Shankharavh Sarkar won it by 75,816 votes, polling 1,29,914 votes against 54,098 for his nearest rival Golam Nabi Azad of the Aam Janata Unnayan Party (AJUP). The BJP’s vote share touched 63.14 per cent.
The opposition vote was splintered beyond repair. Congress nominee Mohammad Abdullahil Kafi finished far behind, and neither the Trinamool Congress nor the breakaway Democratic Trinamool Congress could mount a serious challenge. The bypoll was needed because AJUP founder Humayun Kabir, a former TMC leader, had won Rejinagar by over 58,000 votes in the 2026 Assembly elections but chose to keep Nowda instead. His son Golam Nabi Azad carried the party’s flag this time and lost.
Adhikari did not waste time interpreting the Rejinagar numbers. He credited Muslim voters directly, saying Bengali-speaking Muslims had decided to work alongside the government after rejecting what he called the fear campaign that a BJP government would send them to Bangladesh. He also pointed to women beneficiaries of the Annapurna Yojana, the state’s monthly Rs 3,000 support scheme for low-income households, as a decisive factor behind the mandate.
What the twin wins signal
Two seats do not decide a state, but the pattern matters:
- Consolidation in a fortress: In Nandigram, the BJP did not merely hold Adhikari’s seat, it extended the margin into record territory.
- A breakthrough among minorities: Rejinagar shows the BJP picking up large numbers of minority votes in a seat it had no business winning on paper.
- A fractured opposition: With Congress, Left, ISF, TMC and two TMC offshoots dividing the rest of the pie, no single rival looks ready to challenge the ruling party.
- Welfare as the glue: The chief minister’s repeated invocation of the Annapurna Yojana suggests direct-benefit schemes remain the BJP government’s main outreach tool.
The Congress and other opposition parties alleged irregularities in the process, a charge the chief minister dismissed, asking the opposition to prove that any symbol had been hidden from voters at the ballot box. The Election Commission has not flagged any major incident during counting.
The bypolls, held on Tuesday with counting on Friday, were the first electoral test of West Bengal’s new political order since the BJP ended the Trinamool Congress’s 15-year rule in May. Both seats are now theirs, and by margins that will give the opposition plenty to think about before the next big fight.
Frequently asked questions
Who won the Nandigram bypoll?
BJP candidate Hasirani Rath won by a record margin of 1,22,753 votes, polling 1,64,427 votes against Congress’s Milan Pradhan (41,674 votes).
Who won the Rejinagar bypoll?
BJP candidate Shankharavh Sarkar won with 1,29,914 votes, defeating AJUP’s Golam Nabi Azad (54,098 votes) by 75,816 votes.
Why were these bypolls held?
Nandigram fell vacant after CM Suvendu Adhikari won it and Bhabanipur in the 2026 Assembly polls and retained the latter. Rejinagar fell vacant after AJUP founder Humayun Kabir won it but retained Nowda.
What is the significance of the Rejinagar result?
The constituency has nearly 70 per cent Muslim voters, and the BJP’s 63 per cent vote share there is seen as evidence of a minority vote shift toward the ruling party.
What did Suvendu Adhikari say after the results?
He credited Muslim voters and women beneficiaries of the Annapurna Yojana welfare scheme, and said divisive politics had been rejected by the people.
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