West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday walked out of her Kalighat residence and proceeded on foot to file her nomination for the Bhabanipur Assembly seat, surrounded by a large crowd of supporters who turned the route into a show of strength for the Trinamool Congress chief.
Wearing her trademark simple attire and greeting people with folded hands and a smile, Banerjee acknowledged party workers lined along both sides of the road as she walked approximately 800 metres to the Alipore Survey Building to complete the formalities.
Throughout the march, TMC supporters raised slogans such as “Mamata Banerjee zindabad” and “TMC zindabad”, turning the procession into a high-energy political display.
The three-time MLA from Bhabanipur is expected to face BJP candidate Suvendu Adhikari in what is being seen as a closely watched electoral contest.
"I was born and brought up here in Bhabanipur only. I stay here 365 days a year. My life, my work, my movements -- everything revolves around Bhabanipur. Everything in my life began from here. I thank and salute the people of Bhabanipur," Banerjee said after filing her nomination papers.
Seeking to widen the contest beyond Bhabanipur, Banerjee appealed to electors across Bengal to vote for the TMC.
"I appeal to the people not only in Bhabanipur but in all the 294 seats to ensure the victory of our candidates. We will win with a bigger mandate," she said.
The TMC had won 213 of the 294 seats in the 2021 assembly polls. But the sharpest political message of the day came through the issue of voter roll revision.
Banerjee alleged that large-scale deletions under the SIR had hit Muslims and women disproportionately and said the TMC would again move a court against the freezing of electoral rolls.
"I am really pained that so many names have been deleted from the electoral rolls," she said.
The TMC supremo also said, "I moved the Supreme Court and 32 lakh names, out of 1. 2 crore, have been restored. Those who are in the adjudication list should also be restored. I fail to understand why the voter rolls have been frozen. We will again move a court."
The TMC believes the SIR has disproportionately affected Muslims and women -- two of Banerjee's strongest social constituencies -- and is trying to recast the election narrative from corruption, lack of jobs and anti-incumbency to one centred on identity, citizenship and deleted names.
That is particularly significant in Bhabanipur, where nearly 47,000 names have reportedly been deleted from the rolls, and another 14,000 were kept under adjudication.
More than 56 per cent of those whose names are under adjudication are Muslims, though the community forms only around 24 per cent of the electorate.
The TMC sought to project Bhabanipur as a "mini India" -- a constituency where Bengali Hindus, Gujarati and Marwari traders, Punjabi families, Jains and Muslims have coexisted for decades.
The message was visible even in the proposers to Banerjee's nomination papers -- Rubi Hakim, wife of Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim; businessman Nispal Singh Rane, TMC leader Bablu Singh; and Miraj Shah of the Bhabanipur Education Society.
Spread across eight Kolkata Municipal Corporation wards, Bhabanipur has long been one of the state's most socially diverse constituencies.
Roughly 42 per cent of its electorate are Bengali Hindus, 34 per cent non-Bengali Hindus and around 24 per cent Muslims.
The BJP, however, believes the constituency is no longer the fortress it once was for Banerjee.
Though the TMC won Bhabanipur by nearly 29,000 votes in 2021 and Banerjee later increased that margin to more than 58,000 in the bypoll after her defeat in Nandigram, the party's lead in the Bhabanipur assembly segment shrank to just 8,297 votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
(With inputs from PTI)