Sreerampur Assembly Election 2024

Sreerampur, also spelt Serampore, is a satellite town of Kolkata and a general category Assembly constituency in Hooghly district. Established in 1951, the seat comprises 18 wards, numbers 3 to 19 and 25, of the Serampore municipality, the entire Rishra municipality, along with Rajyadharpur and Rishra gram panchayats of the Sreerampur-Uttarpara community development block. It is one of the seven segments of the Sreerampur Lok Sabha seat.

Sreerampur has gone through 18 Assembly elections since its creation. For years, it served as a Congress stronghold, often challenged by the Indian Marxists, before the Trinamool Congress turned it into its own pocket borough. The Congress won eight times, the CPI three times and the CPI(M) once, while Trinamool has taken the seat in six consecutive contests, including the 2009 by-election.

.Trinamool's run of victories began in its debut election here in 2001. Ratna De won for the party in 2001 and 2006, but resigned after her Lok Sabha victory, paving the way for the 2009 bypoll. Sudipto Roy, the current Trinamool MLA, won that contest by defeating Prasanta Mukherjee of the CPI by 29,678 votes. His margin rose to 51,691 votes in 2011 against CPI's Partha Sarathi Rej. The gap narrowed sharply to 9,907 votes in 2016 when he beat Congress's Subhankar Sarkar, but climbed back to 23,433 votes in 2021 as the BJP, with 22.96 per cent of the vote, emerged as Trinamool's principal challenger with Kabir Shankar Bose as its candidate.

Lok Sabha trends from the Sreerampur Assembly segment paint a different picture. Trinamool led the CPI(M) by 35,718 votes in 2009. The BJP then overtook it with a slender lead of 2,700 votes in 2014 and held a narrow edge of 2,503 votes in 2019. Trinamool finally reclaimed the lead in 2024, ahead of the BJP by 7,821 votes.

Sreerampur had 255,006 registered voters in 2024, up from 252,758 in 2021, 238,809 in 2019, 230,977 in 2016 and 207,798 in 2011. The growth has come in spurts, with 23,179 added between 2011 and 2016 and 13,949 between 2019 and 2021, but this owes nothing to claims of illegal migration from Bangladesh, as Muslims form just 13.90 per cent of the electorate, the largest single group. Scheduled Castes account for 6.07 per cent. It is mainly urban, with 92.35 per cent of voters in towns and 7.65 per cent in villages. Turnout has stayed remarkably steady at 73.54 per cent in 2011, 74.18 per cent in 2016, 74.58 per cent in 2019 and 74.41 per cent in 2021.

Sreerampur derives its name from the Hindu deity Lord Ram and counts among the oldest urban settlements in the region, dating back to the late 18th century. Muslims settled here during the Mughal period, followed by Danish traders who established a colony in 1755, naming it Frederiksnagore. The Danes built factories for silk, cotton and other goods, laying the foundation for its industrial growth. After the British took over in 1845, Serampore evolved into a key river port and manufacturing hub with jute mills, printing presses and missionary activities that spurred education and publishing.

The town sits on the right bank of the Hooghly River in flat alluvial terrain typical of the lower Ganga plains. The river remains central to local life, supporting trade, ferries and fishing alongside industry and urban growth. The economy blends manufacturing, with legacy jute mills and small engineering units, commerce along bustling markets and riverfront trade, and services tied to its status as a Kolkata suburb. A large workforce commutes daily to the city, while local jobs sustain trade, transport and small-scale units.

Serampore enjoys strong connectivity by road, rail and ferry. It lies on the Howrah-Bandel section of the Eastern Railway, with frequent suburban trains linking it to Howrah in about 45 minutes over 25 km. By road, Kolkata's centre is roughly 25 km away via the Grand Trunk Road and Vidyasagar Setu, while Howrah is 16 km across the river. The district headquarters at Chinsurah lies 10 km south, and ferries ply across the Hooghly to places like Dakshineswar. Salt Lake is about 29 km north east, and New Town is around 35 km, both reached via the bypass and expressways.

Other nearby centres include Rishra at 5 km, Uttarpara at 3 km, Bally at 8 km in Howrah district, and Barrackpore about 20 km north in North 24 Parganas. In South 24 Parganas, Baruipur falls around 50 km south east. Hooghly towns like Chandannagar (7 km) and Tarakeswar (35 km) stay close, knitting Serampore into the metropolitan web.

A tough contest awaits Sreerampur in the 2026 Assembly elections. Trinamool's string of six straight victories offers no sure guarantee of a seventh, as the BJP has shown strength in Lok Sabha polls and narrowed the gap in Assembly contests. The Left Front-Congress alliance remains alive enough to influence outcomes, setting the stage for a triangular fight where Trinamool holds only a slight edge and the result could swing either way.

(Ajay Jha)