E-Paper
West Bengal assembly elections on April 23 and 29, results on May 4
Elections to West Bengal’s 294-member Assembly will be conducted in two phases on April 23 and April 20.
Elections to West Bengal's 294 assembly seats will be held in two phases on April 23 and April 29, and the results will be declared on May 4, the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced on Sunday.
With the announcement, the model code of conduct, or a set of guidelines for political parties and candidates for free and fair elections, comes into force in the state until the end of the poll process.
In the first phase, polls will be held in all eight north Bengal districts and some districts on the western part of south Bengal bordering Jharkhand. These are the regions where BJP performed well in the 2019 Lok Sabha and the 2021 assembly polls. In fact, it secured more seats than TMC in the eight north Bengal districts.
The second phase of polling will be held in central and southern West Bengal, including Kolkata. In this region, BJP performed well mainly in two districts; Nadia and North 24 Parganas.
West Bengal Assembly election full schedule
Phase 1 (152 Assembly Constituencies)
• Notification: 30 March 2026 (Monday)
• Last Date for Nominations: 6 April 2026 (Monday)
• Scrutiny: 7 April 2026 (Tuesday)
• Withdrawal: 9 April 2026 (Thursday)
• Polling: 23 April 2026 (Thursday)
• Counting: 4 May 2026 (Monday)
• Completion: 6 May 2026 (Wednesday)
Phase 2 (142 Assembly Constituencies)
• Notification: 2 April 2026 (Thursday)
• Last Date for Nominations: 9 April 2026 (Thursday)
• Scrutiny: 10 April 2026 (Friday)
• Withdrawal: 13 April 2026 (Monday)
• Polling: 29 April 2026 (Wednesday)
• Counting: 4 May 2026 (Monday)
• Completion: 6 May 2026 (Wednesday)
In 2021, violence marred the polls in Bengal, which were held in a record eight phases. The 2016 and 2011 polls were held in six phases, and the 2006 poll in five. Central paramilitary forces were deployed during all these elections. Bengal has not voted on the same day since 2001.
The poll schedule was announced a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the state's ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) of turning Bengali Hindus into a “minority” and opposing the electoral roll Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise to benefit “infiltrators”.
Half an hour before Modi's rally, TMC and BJP supporters clashed within 5km of the venue, hurling stones and raising slogans.
The TMC hit back at Modi, accusing the BJP of fuelling religious polarisation, setting the tone for what is expected to be an acrimonious campaign.
The BJP, which has made significant inroads in the state since 2014, has been hoping to wrest power from TMC, which has ruled West Bengal since 2011 after the 34-year Left Front rule.
In the run-up to the 2026 polls, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has been at loggerheads with the ECI over the SIR. The TMC has been up in arms over the deletion of around 6.3 million names and the placement of another six million voters in the "under adjudication" category.
Banerjee staged a sit-in on March 6 at Kolkata's Esplanade Metro channel, where she also sat on her 26-day hunger strike in 2006 against farmland acquisition for the Tata Motors plant in Singur. She successfully tapped into public sympathy for her successful opposition to the plant and the chemical hub in Nandigram to oust the Left Front in 2011.
The TMC secured 184 seats in 2011, the Congress 42, and the Left 40. The BJP, which has since emerged as the state's main opposition force, failed to win any seats in 2001, 2006, and 2011. Its rise has coincided with TMC's 15-year rule. The BJP secured three seats in 2016. In 2021, its tally rose to 77 seats. Two of the BJP's assembly election winners in 2021 did not take the oath to retain their Lok Sabha seats. The TMC won those seats in by-polls, increasing the ruling party's tally from 213 to 215 seats. Some BJP lawmakers later joined the TMC but did not resign from the assembly.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP won 18 seats of Bengal's 42 seats. The tally came down to 12 in 2024.
The TMC has accused the BJP of misusing federal probe agencies and the ECI for electoral gains. TMC workers carrying placards with “go back” slogans and black flags protested against chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar when the ECI team visited Kolkata this week for a series of meetings to take stock of the poll preparations.
On February 24, the Supreme Court invoked its extraordinary powers under the Constitution's Article 142 to direct the ECI to continue publishing supplementary voter lists even after the final electoral roll was to be notified on February 28 to ensure that no eligible voter is disenfranchised ahead of the assembly elections.
The court deemed that voters included in supplementary lists would be treated as part of the final roll, effectively neutralising rigid statutory timelines that might otherwise bar inclusion of voters whose verification remained pending. It authorised the chief justice of the Calcutta high court to requisition additional judicial manpower from West Bengal and neighbouring states such as Jharkhand and Odisha to complete adjudication of claims “on a war footing”. Over 250 serving and retired district judges were engaged in deciding nearly five million claims and objections.
