Bally, a popular neighbourhood in Howrah city and part of the Kolkata metropolitan area, is a purely urban general category Assembly constituency established in 1951. It consists of the entire Bally municipality and is one of the seven segments under the Howrah Lok Sabha seat.
For six decades after Independence, Bally was a famous battleground between the Congress and the CPI(M), with both parties winning the seat multiple times but neither able to turn it into an undisputed bastion. Bally has voted in all 17 Assembly elections held in the state so far. The CPI(M) has won the seat eight times, the Congress six times, and the Trinamool Congress three times, with Trinamool’s victories coming in succession since 2011.
The Congress dominated the early phase, winning all four terms between 1952 and 1967. Thereafter, a see-saw began. The CPI(M) took the next two elections in 1969 and 1971, the Congress captured the seat in 1972, and the CPI(M) struck back by winning in 1977 and 1982, before the Congress reclaimed it in 1987. This was followed by four consecutive CPI(M) victories between 1991 and 2006. As the Congress withered and the Left began to lose ground, the Trinamool Congress stepped in to halt the CPI(M) run and has won all three Assembly elections held since 2011.
In 2011, Sultan Singh of the Trinamool Congress defeated CPI(M)’s Kanika Ganguly, who had won the seat thrice in a row earlier, by 6,600 votes. Trinamool then fielded Baishali Dalmiya, a businesswoman and daughter of cricket administrator Jagmohan Dalmiya, in 2016. She took the seat by defeating CPI(M) candidate Saumendranath Bera by 15,403 votes. Baishali was expelled from the Trinamool in January 2021 for alleged anti-party activities and soon joined the BJP, which nominated her from Bally that year. She failed in her bid to deliver the seat to the BJP, losing to Trinamool’s Rana Chatterjee by 6,237 votes.
Voting trends in the Bally segment during Lok Sabha elections show a similar pattern of shifting leads with Trinamool on top in the last three cycles. In 2009, the CPI(M) led Trinamool in Bally by 27,754 votes. In 2014, Trinamool went ahead, leading the BJP by 12,239 votes. The BJP almost wiped out that gap in 2019, when Trinamool’s lead shrank to just 295 votes, before Trinamool regained some lost ground in 2024 with a margin of 6,492 votes.
Bally is one of the rare seats that recorded a marginal decline in the number of registered voters between the 2021 and 2024 elections. The electorate stood at 176,155 in 2024, down slightly from 176,197 in 2021, after rising steadily from 142,634 in 2011 to 159,941 in 2016 and 165,913 in 2019. It is a fully urban constituency with no rural voters on its rolls. Muslims, at 9.10 per cent of voters, form the largest identifiable community bloc, while Scheduled Castes account for 2.44 per cent. Turnout has been high by urban standards but has softened of late. It was 73.39 per cent in 2011, 70.20 per cent in 2016, 73.70 per cent in 2019, 71.49 per cent in 2021 and 67.57 per cent in 2024.
Bally is an old municipal town on the west bank of the Hooghly, forming the northernmost part of Howrah city. The Bally Municipality was first set up in 1883 by carving out the northern wards of Howrah, which later merged into the Howrah Municipal Corporation in 2015 and was re-established as a separate municipality in 2021 after persistent local dissatisfaction with the merger. The locality has long been part of Kolkata’s extended industrial and residential belt, with mixed middle-class and working-class neighbourhoods tied closely to the city’s economy.
Geographically, Bally lies just inland from the Hooghly River, with slightly higher ground to the west and lower-lying areas towards the river that are prone to waterlogging during heavy rain. Bally Canal (Bally Khal) separates Bally from Uttarpara in the Hooghly district to the north, with a bridge over the canal dating back to the mid-19th century linking the two. Localities around Bally include Belur and Liluah within Howrah and a string of settlements along the Grand Trunk Road and the riverfront.
The economy of Bally is closely integrated with that of greater Kolkata and Howrah. Many residents work in services, government offices, transport, trading and the remaining pockets of industry in Howrah and along the Hooghly, while small businesses, shops and workshops line the main roads and markets. The presence of major roads, bridges and railway stations in and around Bally helps sustain a dense network of commuting to central Kolkata, Howrah and the neighbouring towns.
Bally serves as an important transport node for the northern Howrah-Kolkata urban belt. It is connected to Dakshineswar and Kolkata via Vivekananda Setu and Nivedita Setu across the Hooghly, while the Grand Trunk Road and the Belghoria Expressway pass through the area, linking it to Kolkata, Howrah and Hooghly. Bally is roughly 8 to 10 km by road from central Howrah and about 12 to 15 km from central Kolkata by the river bridges and expressways. Nearby railway stations such as Bally, Bally Ghat and Belur on the suburban network provide frequent local trains to Howrah, Sealdah and other parts of the metropolitan region. Within Howrah district, towns and localities such as Liluah, Belur, Howrah city centre and the industrial belts along NH 16 and NH 19 are all within short commuting distance, while across the river, the Hooghly-side towns of Uttarpara, Konnagar and Serampore lie just to the north.
Going into the 2026 Assembly elections, the bare statistics and historical record do not fully capture the ground reality in Bally. On paper, Trinamool appears dominant, having won three consecutive Assembly elections and led in three successive Lok Sabha contests since 2011, making it six in a row. In practice, its margins have mostly remained modest, and the near photo finish in 2019 at the parliamentary level suggested how quickly the race can tighten. That keeps the BJP hopeful of turning the tables in 2026, especially if the Left Front-Congress alliance, which is far from extinct in a traditional battleground like Bally, manages to chip away at Trinamool’s vote base. Bally could, therefore, witness a tough and intriguing contest between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP, with the Left Front-Congress combine adding colour and complexity to a battle where a small swing may prove decisive.
(Ajay Jha)
