BJP won the two West Bengal Assembly by-elections held on Friday, October 9, 2026. It secured Nandigram with a historic winning margin while securing its first win in Rejinagar, a Muslim-dominated constituency in Murshidabad district.
These victories came as the first electoral challenge for the BJP government following the end of Trinamool Congress' 15 years reign in the state.
The BJP candidate, Hasi Rani Rath, beat the Congress candidate, Milan Pradhan, with a margin of 122,753 votes after all 17 counting rounds, as per the reports of the Election Commission published by PTI.
The Congress candidate Milan Pradhan was being backed by the previous Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee.
This is the highest ever margin of victory in Nandigram. The previous record was held by the incumbent Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, who had defeated the BJP candidate in this constituency in 2016 with a margin of 81,230 votes.
Suvendu Adhikari said the win of Rath was "historic and unprecedented."
The second victory attracted even greater political interest. In Rejinagar, where 70 percent of the voters are Muslims, BJP’s Shankharavh Sarkar defeated the AJUP’s Golam Nabi Azad by 75,816 votes after 15 rounds.
According to PTI, the situation differed from that during the previous assembly election, in which Kabir won Rejinagar on behalf of yet another party with a margin of more than 58,000 votes. The reports under consideration did not explain why both seats became vacant.
The PTI stated that the outcome had exposed the weakness of an ineffective opposition. The candidates opposing the BJP in both constituencies belonged to rival parties—Congress in Nandigram and AJUP in Rejinagar.
There is nothing in the reports analyzed that includes any comment on the outcome of the voting by either the Trinamool Congress, Congress, or the AJUP.
Nandigram always has had a very important role in the political history of Bengal. In the assembly elections of 2021, Adhikari, who recently joined BJP, beat Mamata Banerjee in this constituency with around a 1,200-vote difference. Banerjee accused "mischief" and said she will take legal action.
In light of this background, the result of over 1.2 lakhs on Friday is a big departure from how this constituency has been voting.
These are independent seats, and the reports fail to indicate whether these margins indicate an emerging trend across the state. The turnout rates, or percentage of votes cast, were not found in the documents analyzed.
Rath and Sarkar will soon be occupying their seats in the Assembly as the BJP government enters its second year of operation.
The opposition parties, which have been visibly split in these races, must ask themselves whether they should cooperate in the elections ahead.
