Rajbongshi identity demand, a journalist-turned-candidate in Alipurduar, and a four-time TMC MLA’s resignation signal that North Bengal’s ticket wars could cost both parties dearly
By NIRENDRA DEV
Kolkata, March 19, 2026 — North Bengal has always felt like a different country from Kolkata. In the run-up to the 2026 assembly elections, it is beginning to behave like one.
Dissidence has broken the surface in both Trinamool Congress and BJP over candidate selection across the region — and beneath the ticket disputes lies a more combustible question that neither party will address directly: the demand for a separate administrative identity for North Bengal, a cause that animates the electorate but terrifies the leadership of every mainstream party that depends on Bengali sentiment to win the south.
The BJP’s fringe gamble in Coochbehar
The BJP has not finalised candidates for several Coochbehar constituencies — and the reason, according to sources is that the party’s central leadership, including Union Minister Bhupender Yadav, is in active discussions with the Greater Cooch Behar Peoples’ Party (Bangshibadan Barman faction), a small outfit with limited local influence. The seats reportedly under discussion include Natabari, Sitai, and Coochbehar South.
The BJP’s preference is to absorb two or three candidates from the Greater Coochbehar Party onto the BJP ticket rather than extend a formal alliance — a manoeuvre designed to consolidate Rajbongshi community support without visibly endorsing the group’s core demand for a separate administrative unit. That demand — inclusion of the Rajbongshi language in the Eighth Schedule and a distinct political identity for North Bengal — is one BJP state unit president Samik Bhattacharya has flagged in his capacity as a Rajya Sabha member. But any public concession on statehood or division risks handing Trinamool a ready-made attack line: that the BJP is pursuing an anti-Bengal, Banga Bhanga agenda.
The RSS had pushed for a senior Sangh figure in Sitai, a reserved constituency. That candidature has not materialised — Sitai was conspicuously absent even from the BJP’s second candidate list.
“If BJP has blundered, they may lose three to four seats out of six in Coochbehar,” said Dilip Das, a school teacher in Sitai, adding: “Moreover, their candidates for seats such as Dinhata are not good. Why BJP is fielding former minister Nisith Pramanik from Mathabhanga is also a mystery.”
TMC’s Natabari wound
On the Trinamool side, the most visible rupture is in Natabari. Rabindranath Ghosh — a two-time MLA from the seat and former Bengal minister — was passed over for the ticket, which went to Sailen Barman. Within hours of the announcement, Ghosh declared: “I am a victim of a deep political conspiracy.” He added, pointedly: “There’s nothing much to say — one doesn’t have to remain in politics forever.”
The subtext was unambiguous. Ghosh was stripped of the district president’s post in 2019 and lost his seat in 2021. Being denied the ticket in 2026 completes a three-election marginalisation. Whether he campaigns for Barman — or quietly allows his network to sit on its hands — will matter in a constituency where local loyalty is a more reliable predictor of outcome than party affiliation.
Alipurduar: the journalist candidate and the former MLA’s fury
In Alipurduar, Trinamool has fielded journalist Suman Kanjilal — a decision that has provoked former MLA Sourav Chakraborty into a public social media campaign that stopped just short of naming his own party’s candidate. Chakraborty’s posts alleged that “much development in Alipurduar” had been overseen by someone who had taken tenders for contracts worth approximately ₹200 crore — a pointed allegation directed, transparently, at Kanjilal.
The history adds layers. In 2021, Kanjilal contested from the BJP and defeated Chakraborty. He then defected to Trinamool. He is now the Trinamool candidate in the seat where he beat the man who is now publicly undermining him — while ostensibly belonging to the same party.
Rajganj and the loyalty economy
In Rajganj, four-time Trinamool MLA Khageswar Roy resigned from his district chairman’s post after being dropped from the candidate list. The resignation is both a protest and a warning: a four-term incumbent whose local network spans multiple election cycles does not go quietly.
The Anant Maharaj variable
Threading through several of these contests is the figure of Nagendra Ray — BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP, widely known as Anant Maharaj, and leader of the Greater Cooch Behar Democratic Party. The BJP’s bet on Anant Maharaj as a consolidating force in the region has not delivered the returns the party anticipated. Harihar Das, the TMC candidate in Sitalkuchi, is a former BJP leader and Anant Maharaj loyalist whom Mamata Banerjee peeled away last year by making him chairperson of the advisory committee running the Rajbanshi Bhasha Academy.
“We would like to see how Anant Maharaj campaigns during the coming elections — either for TMC or the BJP,” said one local resident in Sitalkuchi. The question is not rhetorical.
North Bengal’s politics has always been a negotiation between identity, loyalty, and development grievance. In 2026, all three are unsettled simultaneously — and neither of the two parties with the most to lose has yet found a way to settle any of them.
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