States » EastPosted at: Oct 5 2026 11:31PM


Bengal: Nandigram poll puts BJP’s Muslim outreach to the test

By Biswabrata Goswami
Nandigram, Oct 5 (UNI) As Nandigram prepares to vote on Tuesday, West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari’s direct appeal to Muslim voters has brought the constituency’s minority electorate into sharp focus, with the BJP seeking to change voting patterns that have traditionally worked against it.
The numbers explain why the Chief Minister’s last-minute outreach to Muslim voters could matter far beyond its immediate political symbolism. Nandigram has around 2.66 lakh electors, including roughly 72,000 Muslims — about 27 per cent of the electorate. Adhikari defeated Mamata Banerjee by just 1,956 votes in 2021.
A five per cent shift of the estimated Muslim vote alone would amount to around 3,600 votes — nearly twice Adhikari’s previous winning margin.
That is the arithmetic now hanging over Tuesday’s contest.
Adhikari has openly attempted to break with the BJP’s traditional difficulty among minority voters in Nandigram. In his final campaign push, he directly appealed to Muslims to support him, effectively acknowledging that the community had not voted for the BJP in significant numbers in the past.
The Chief Minister’s message has been clear: the old political equations need not continue.
But Congress candidate Milan Pradhan has launched a sharp counter-offensive, questioning whether such an appeal, made immediately before polling, can overcome years of alleged alienation.
“If an appeal is made to Muslims just one day before voting, can they accept it?” Pradhan told The Statesman.
He alleged that members of the minority community had faced harassment and exclusion and claimed that names had been removed during the SIR exercise and from welfare-related lists, including in cases involving names carrying identifiers such as “Sheikh”, “Mohammed” and “Khan”. The allegations could not be independently verified.
Pradhan also accused the ruling Trinamool Congress of creating a “fear psychosis” among opposition workers after the campaign ended and urged the administration to ensure that Tuesday’s polling remained free and impartial.
“Nandigram’s people are politically conscious and know how to make history. They should be allowed to participate in the democratic festival peacefully,” he said.
The BJP, meanwhile, is pointing to signs that its appeal may have begun to penetrate traditionally inaccessible minority pockets.
Sarberia has emerged as a striking example. The area has around 1,700 voters, about 70 per cent of them from the minority community. The emergence of a temporary BJP office there, reportedly set up by Muslim youths following Adhikari’s appeal, has given the BJP campaign an unexpected talking point.
But one pocket cannot establish a trend.
The 2021 booth-level figures illustrate the scale of the BJP’s historical problem. At one booth where 893 of 949 electors were Muslims, Banerjee secured 806 votes, while Adhikari received only 24.
The question now is whether that gulf can narrow.
The contest has also been transformed by the withdrawal of the Trinamool candidate and Banerjee’s backing of Pradhan. The traditional anti-BJP vote is therefore facing a new test: whether it consolidates behind the Congress candidate or whether the BJP can prise away enough support to alter the arithmetic.
The Election Commission does not publish religion-wise voting figures, and the five per cent calculation is therefore illustrative rather than predictive. Turnout, candidate preference and the distribution of votes across booths could all alter the final outcome.
Yet the political significance is unmistakable.
For Adhikari, Nandigram is no longer merely about defending the victory that made him the BJP’s most prominent face in Bengal politics.
It is about proving that the constituency’s minority wall is no longer impregnable.
For Pradhan, Tuesday’s poll is an opportunity to test whether the minority electorate will reject what he calls a last-minute outreach and instead consolidate behind the Congress-backed challenge.
A 1,956-vote victory created the Nandigram legend in 2021.
On Tuesday, even a five per cent movement in the minority vote could produce an entirely different arithmetic.
The ballot boxes will decide whether Adhikari has finally breached the wall — or whether Nandigram’s old political divide survives another election. UNI BG NST CDS
Tags: #Bengal: Nandigram poll puts BJP’s Muslim outreach to the test
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