West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026 | Bandwan, a former Maoist territory-turned-TMC stronghold will see three cornered election

Bandwan, Purulia: The number of police barricades at the entry to Bandwan town is a stark reminder of its bloody past.

For seven years between 2005 and 2011, it was a Maoist hotspot that witnessed the killing of several local politicians and a senior police official. Bandwan was in the middle of the Red Corridor stretching from Jharkhand on one side and Medinipur district on the other.

As the road from Purulia enters the town, a vehicle must navigate as many as eight barricades under the watchful eyes of security personnel on both sides of the road. The threat is gone, but the fear persists.

Following the 2011 change of guard in West Bengal, hundreds of cadres from the Maoist-backed People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities – an outfit highly active in Bandwan - joined the TMC.

While many may have done so to seek protection from pending criminal cases, their presence in the TMC camp instilled a sense of fear among people in Bandwan and nearby areas like Barabazar and Manbazar. This may have helped the TMC secure 47 per cent of the votes in the last two assembly elections, allowing it to emerge victorious.

Sitting MLA and TMC candidate Rajiv Lochan Soren was a beneficiary, winning the seat in 2016 and 2021. However, this time the contest is unpredictable, thanks to the combination of a saffron undercurrent and the Left block gathering strength.

Residents of Bandwan are openly critical of Soren due to his non-performance in improving schools, healthcare and livelihoods.

“Soren is a school teacher. But in so many schools in and around Bandwan, there are no teachers. There are no doctors or nurses in government health centres. One of the block health centres has an X-ray machine, but the health department has not appointed an X-ray technician to operate it,” said Sanjay Halder, a local businessman at Chowkbazar.

Bandwan is also home to the Kheria-Shabar community, a particularly vulnerable tribal group that continues to live in the fringes even after seven decades of independence. The assembly segment has 35 per cent Scheduled Tribe voters, of which nearly one-fifth are Shabars.

Most of them are extremely poor, can eat only one square meal a day and earn less than Rs 100 a day; and that too occasionally. Many Shabars go to other cities to work as daily labourers. The locals are confused between the BJP’s pro-Hindutava campaign and TMC cash transfer schemes.

They also come under pressure from the Bhumij, another prominent regional tribal group linked to the historic Chuar Rebellion against the British East India company.

While the TMC brought Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren to campaign extensively in Bandwan and Manbazar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi narrated how his government backed the tribal communities and made one of them the President.

Will the tribal cards hold? Can CPM candidate Rathu Singh Sardar upset the equation? These are questions that hang in the air on the eve of polling at Bandwan.