Mamata Banerjee: The rise and fall of the gritty street fighter

IN due west Bengal, where rajpather rajneeti (street political relation) pronounced by rallies and wild agitations, or desolate roadstead during general strikes (bandhs), steered the course of post-Independence governance - from the Congress to the Left Front in 1977 and then from the Communists to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in 2011 - Mamata Banerjee stood out as a street fighter who led her folk from the front to defeat adversaries.West Bengal is set to vote in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a party in power at the Centre to rule the state for the first time in 49 years. The decisive rejection of Banerjee’s 15-year-old government has been largely fuelled by strong anti-incumbency, allegations of rampant corruption and possibly the consolidation of the Hindu vote.Banerjee’s oft-repeated declaration, “I am the candidate from all seats,” was the hallmark of her electoral politics. 2026 was no exception. At 71, she addressed a record 90 rallies and led 22 roadshows in two months. Not only Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) heavyweights but even the TMC’s young apparatchiks could not compete with those numbers.Yet, by Monday evening, Didi (elder sister) was virtually vanquished. By about 6 pm on Monday, according to the Election Commission of India, BJP had won 44 and was leading in 160 of the 294 seats; TMC had won 21 and leading 62. Bengal had turned saffron.“Chor, chor (thief),” BJP supporters shouted at Abhishek Banerjee, the chief minister’s nephew and second-in-command, when he entered the Sakhawat Memorial Girls School where votes polled at her Bhabanipur seat were being counted.Challenges TMC facedEven for someone who overcame the limitations of an obscure middle-class background and defeated CPI(M) stalwart Somnath Chatterjee in Jadavpur in 1984 in her very first Lok Sabha battle as a youth Congress leader, the 2026 polls posed unforeseen challenges. The biggest of these was the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll.There were around 76.6 million voters in Bengal when the SIR was notified in October last year. The revision led to the removal of around 9.1 million names. This includes delisting around 6.3 million dead and absentee voters and an additional 2.7 million voters declared ineligible after adjudication due to “logical discrepancies” in their enumeration papers. Banerjee entered a poll arena saying, “The BJP made the Election Commission delete the names of our supporters.”Mamata Banerjee’s rise and fallBanerjee’s first major movement against the Left Front government started in 2000 - two years after she left the Congress and formed TMC - against alleged atrocities by CPI(M) workers in West Midnapore district’s Keshpur and Garbeta. Appealing to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, her ally at the time, to promulgate Article 356 in Bengal, Banerjee raised the slogan “Kespur hobe CPM er sespur” (Kespur will mark the end of the CPI-M).Neither of that happened and Banerjee had to plan one movement after another and a series of strikes until her anti-land acquisition agitations in Nandigram and Singur fuelled the anti-incumbency the Left government faced in its 34th year. For chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, who succeeded Jyoti Basu, the wave was too strong despite his efforts to set up new industries and free the CPI(M) of its anti-capital image.On Monday, Bengal witnessed a repeat of 2011.“There is political anti-incumbency, which the Left faced in 2011, and there is demand-based anti-incumbency triggered by mass unemployment and lack of industries. Both worked against Banerjee,” political science professor Udayan Bandopadhyay said.Several TMC leaders, who did not want to be quoted, admitted on Monday that Banerjee’s efforts to turn Bengal into an opposition-less state during her first term as chief minister became the cause of her downfall.In less than a year after Banerjee formed her government with Congress, her ally in the 2011 polls, the grand old party accused her of pressuring its MLAs to join the TMC. The alliance broke.As the Congress and the Left came closer, the BJP, no longer a TMC ally and virtually non-existent in Bengal politics until then, started expanding in the state. That’s when the politics of polarisation started.In 2012, the BJP accused Banerjee of appeasing Muslims when she decided to pay a monthly allowance of ₹2,500 to Imams and ₹1,500 to Muezzins of all mosques. After court hearings on the BJP’s petition, the Calcutta high court ruled in 2013 that paying such allowances violated constitutional guidelines on secularism and non-discrimination. Instead of moving a higher court, the state directed the payments as an honorarium through the Waqf Board.Cases of corruptionAlthough the state’s first female CM implemented several social welfare projects and monetary assistance schemes for women, students, senior citizens and farmers, the BJP made infiltration from Bangladesh and corruption charges against TMC leaders its primary issues in every election.The Saradha and Narada cases, despite being in sharp focus, however, failed to influence voters in the 2016 assembly polls that the TMC swept.Banerjee was targeted again in 2018, a year before the Lok Sabha polls, for announcing a financial grant of ₹10,000 for Durga Puja committees and community clubs. A PIL filed in the high court argued that state funds cannot be used for religious purposes. The court accepted the state’s argument that the funds were meant for community policing and public safety during the festival.The Supreme Court refused to stay the high court order. Banerjee increased the amount every year and it stood at ₹1.10 lakh in 2025, leading to an expenditure of around ₹495 crore. Banerjee won the 2021 polls, winning 213 seats. Months later, UNESCO added Durga Puja in Kolkata to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.“Some people said Mamata Ji toh Durga puja karne nehi deti (Mamata Ji doesn’t allow Durga Puja),” the CM said during her recent rallies, taking a dig at the BJP’s star campaigners from the Hindi belt, especially Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath.Having opposed the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise launched in Assam in 2013, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed by Parliament in 2019 and the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) enforced by BJP-ruled Uttarakhand in 2024, Banerjee would have noticed that religious polarisation was sharpening Bengal in the run-up to the 2026 elections.She attempted to counter it. Accused by the BJP of using Muslims as a vote bank and helping Bangladeshi infiltrators settle down, Banerjee built the Jagannath temple in Digha in East Midnapore district at a cost of ₹250 crore and inaugurated it in June 2025. In January, three months before the two-phase polls, she laid the foundation stone of a Mahakaal (Shiva) temple near Siliguri in north Bengal saying the state would build the world’s highest idol of the Hindu God and a temple complex at a cost of ₹344.2 crore.Although both have been marked as cultural centres, the BJP raised questions on taxpayer’s money being spent on temples in a secular nation.The efforts were not successful. “The poll results indicate that even a chunk of Muslim voters supported the BJP. This primarily happened because Banerjee failed to generate employment which forced millions of Muslims to migrate to other states for livelihood. The BJP arranged trains for around 2.2 million migrant workers to return home and cast their votes,” Bandopadhyay said.Rejection by women votersWomen, previously considered Banerjee’s biggest strength in every election have seemingly rejected her as well.The voting pattern indicated that Lakshmir Bhandar (a monthly allowance of ₹1500 for the general category and ₹1700 for SC/ST) would have to make way for the BJP’s electoral promise of ₹3000 a month.The BJP’s election song, “Paltano dorkar, chai BJP sarkar” (We need a BJP government because change is necessary), blared from loudspeakers even in Kalighat where Banerjee has lived since childhood.