West Bengal Assembly election 2021, Bhabanipur profile: Mamata Banerjee vacates bastion to challenge friend-turned-foe

Bhabanipur is an Assembly/Vidhan Sabha constituency in the Kolkata South district of West Bengal. It falls under the Kolkata Dakshin Lok Sabha constituency. In the 2016 West Bengal Assembly election, the constituency had a total of 2,05,713 registered voters. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday  announced that she would vacate Bhabanipur, her traditional seat in Kolkata and contest from Nandigram, throwing a challenge to her protege-turned-rival Suvendu Adhikari, who crossed over to the BJP in December. “I will contest from Nandigram as I stick to my word. From Bhabanipur constituency, Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay will be contesting in the upcoming Assembly elections,” Banerjee said while releasing TMC candidate list for the state polls. Banerjee and Adhikari were the prominent figures of the anti-land acquisition movement in Nandigram in 2007 that ultimately catapulted the firebrand Trinamool Congress supremo to power in West Bengal in 2011 ending 34-year-old rule of the Left Front. Voter turnout in previous election The voter turnout in Bhabanipur in the previous Assembly election was 66.83 percent. Past election results and winners In the 2016 West Bengal Assembly election, chief minister Mamata Banerjee and All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) president Mamata Banerjee had won the seat by securing 65,520 votes. Deepa Dasmunshi of the Indian National Congress (INC) took the second position with 40,219 votes. In 2011, TMC held the seat after Subrata Bakshi was declared winner. He received 87,903 votes as against CPM candidate Narayan Prasad Jain’s 37,967 votes. Bakshi won by a margin of 36.79 percent. Elections to the 294-member Assembly will be held in eight phases from 27 March to 29 April. Votes will be counted on 2 May.