Sabang Assembly Election 2024

Established in 1951, Sabang has seen 14 Assembly elections so far, including the 2017 by-election. The constituency disappeared from the electoral map for a decade between 1967 and 1977, when four Assembly elections were held in the state. The Congress party has won nine of the 14 contests. The breakaway Biplobi Bangla Congress (BBC) and the Trinamool Congress have held the seat twice each, while an Independent supported by the Left won once in 1996. The seat went to the polls twice in 2001 after the Calcutta High Court set aside the first result and ordered a re-poll. In the first election, BBC leader Tushar Kanti Laya, backed by the CPI(M), defeated Manas Ranjan Bhunia by just 397 votes in a controversial contest. In the fresh election, Laya again prevailed, this time by 6,257 votes.

Barring his defeats in 1996 and 2001, Bhunia has been the dominant figure in Sabang politics. He won the seat three times in a row between 1982 and 1991 and returned to win it three more times between 2006 and 2016. He took the seat in 2006 by defeating Laya by 6,513 votes and retained it in 2011, beating BBC’s Rama Pada Sahoo by 13,184 votes. In 2016, Bhunia defeated Trinamool’s Nirmal Ghosh by a huge margin of 49,167 votes. He later resigned from the Congress and entered the Rajya Sabha. In the 2017 by-election triggered by his resignation, his wife Geeta Rani Bhunia won the seat for the Trinamool Congress, defeating Rita Mandal of the BBC by 64,196 votes. Manas Ranjan Bhunia then returned as the Trinamool candidate in 2021 and won again, but with a much narrower margin. He defeated BJP’s Amulya Maiti by 9,864 votes, equal to 4.20 per cent of the polled vote.

Lok Sabha elections in the Sabang segment have produced some tight and fascinating contests. In 2009, the CPI led the Trinamool Congress by 6,164 votes. That lead shrank sharply in 2014, when the CPI was ahead of the Congress by only 68 votes. The Trinamool moved in front in 2019, when it led the BJP by 6,170 votes. It consolidated this advantage in 2024, stretching its lead over the BJP to 32,683 votes, with the BJP again finishing second.

The 2025 Special Intensive Revision has dramatically pruned the Sabang rolls. The constituency has 214,821 voters in the draft electoral roll, a fall of 62,052 voters compared to 2024. Earlier, Sabang had seen striking increases in the number of voters, adding 12,090 voters in three years between 2021 and 2024, 9,675 between 2019 and 2021, 13,463 between 2016 and 2019, and 35,206 between 2011 and 2016. The electorate stood at 276,873 in 2024, 264,783 in 2021, 255,108 in 2019, 241,645 in 2016 and 206,439 in 2011.

Sabang is a purely rural seat with no large industries, which rules out major job-driven inward migration. Adding 70,434 voters in just 13 years, across only 16 gram panchayats, is difficult to explain by natural population growth alone. Trinamool’s rivals allege that the names of dead and migrated voters were not removed for years and that thousands of bogus voters were on the rolls. This charge gains force from the fact that, unlike Muslim-dominated constituencies bordering Bangladesh, Sabang has a relatively small Muslim population and lies far from the international border. Muslim voters account for about 7.80 per cent of the electorate, while Scheduled Castes make up 11.88 per cent and Scheduled Tribes 5.51 per cent. The unusually high number of voters has gone hand in hand with very high turnout, which stood at 93.30 per cent in 2011, 88.72 per cent in 2016, 85.62 per cent in 2019, 89.27 per cent in 2021 and 85.66 per cent in 2024.

Sabang forms part of the wider historical region of Midnapore, whose recorded past goes back to ancient and early medieval times. Sabang itself is known more as a rural block and market centre.

Sabang lies in the Kharagpur subdivision of Paschim Medinipur district, towards the south-eastern part of the district. The terrain is part of the coastal and alluvial plains of south-western Bengal. It is generally flat to gently undulating, with fertile soils suited to paddy and other crops. Parts of the block are prone to waterlogging and seasonal flooding that also sustain fisheries and fish-based livelihoods.

The local economy is driven mainly by agriculture, fisheries, and rural crafts. Paddy is the major crop, along with other foodgrains and cash crops. Many villagers supplement their incomes through weaving, small trade and seasonal work in nearby towns such as Kharagpur and Medinipur.

Sabang is connected by road to the subdivision headquarters at Kharagpur and to other parts of Paschim Medinipur. The distance between Kharagpur and Sabang is about 39 km by road. Medinipur town, the district headquarters, lies further north, around 60 to 70 km away. Kolkata, the state capital, is around 130 to 150 km away by road. Rail access for Sabang residents generally involves travelling to nearby railway stations in Kharagpur or other adjoining towns for long-distance trains.

Other nearby towns within Paschim Medinipur include smaller growth centres such as Debra, Pingla and Ghatal within short distances. Beyond the district, towns in East Midnapore and in the larger Kharagpur-Kolaghat belt fall within normal commuting or trading distance.

The final electoral roll is likely to restore some of the names now marked for deletion, but the overall number of voters will still remain well below the 2024 figure. That alone is enough to unsettle all previous election arithmetic and inject confusion and suspicion into the run-up to the 2026 Assembly polls. The Trinamool Congress, which has led in the last three legislative and parliamentary contests here, faces the prospect of a much tighter race if significant chunks of its earlier support were tied to names now purged. The BJP, which has already emerged as its principal challenger, can hope to narrow the gap and push the contest into genuinely open territory. With the Left Front-Congress alliance reduced to low single digits and struggling to stay relevant, Sabang in 2026 is likely to see a straight Trinamool versus BJP fight, with neither side able to claim a clear, natural edge once the SIR-induced churn in the rolls is taken into account.

(Ajay Jha)