Established in 1957, Bhatar has gone to the polls 16 times. The CPI(M) has won the seat seven times, the CPI twice, the Congress party four times, and the Trinamool Congress three times. In 2011, Banamali Hazra of the Trinamool Congress won the seat by defeating CPI(M)’s Srijit Konar by a wafer-thin margin of 298 votes. In 2016, Subhash Mondal of the Trinamool defeated Bamacharan Banerjee of the CPI(M) by 6,280 votes. In 2021, Mangobinda Adhikari of the Trinamool Congress defeated the BJP’s Mahendranath Kowar by 31,741 votes. All three major parties – the Trinamool Congress, the CPI(M) and the BJP – have changed their candidates in each of these three elections. The strategy worked for the Trinamool, but not for the CPI(M), and only partly for the BJP, which nevertheless succeeded in replacing the CPI(M) as the principal challenger.
Lok Sabha results in the Bhatar segment show the gradual shift from Left dominance to a Trinamool-BJP contest. In 2009, the CPI(M) led the Congress by 13,903 votes here. In 2014, the Trinamool Congress moved ahead, leading the CPI(M) by 14,218 votes. By 2019, the BJP had become the main rival, but the Trinamool still led it by 26,464 votes, and it strengthened that advantage in 2024 with a lead of 32,420 votes.
Following the 2025 Special Intensive Revision, Bhatar had 244,546 voters on the draft electoral roll, a decline of 10,737 from 255,283 in 2024. Earlier, the electorate stood at 246,694 in 2021, 238,022 in 2019, 226,528 in 2016, and 197,674 in 2011. Muslims account for 25.10 per cent of the voters, Scheduled Castes 32.55 per cent, and Scheduled Tribes 9.23 per cent. All voters here are rural, as Bhatar has no urban voters on its rolls. Turnout has remained very high, at 89.70 per cent in 2011, 87.45 per cent in 2016, 85.58 per cent in 2019, and 86.80 per cent in 2021.
Bhatar lies in the northern part of Purba Bardhaman district, which is often described as the rice bowl of West Bengal because of its extensive irrigated paddy fields. The wider Bardhaman region has a long history, appearing in Mughal records such as the Ain-i-Akbari and later developing as the seat of the Bardhaman Raj under the Maharajas of Burdwan, who rose to prominence under the Mughals and continued as major landlords under British rule. Bhatar has grown as a rural block and market centre serving its surrounding villages.
The terrain in Bhatar is part of the flat alluvial plains formed by the Damodar River and its associated drainage. Soils are fertile, and the spread of canals and tubewells has enabled intensive rice cultivation. The area is generally free from the rugged uplands seen in western Bardhaman and Bankura, but it remains vulnerable to localised flooding and waterlogging in low-lying tracts during heavy rains.
The local economy is dominated by agriculture and allied activities. Besides Paddy, other crops such as oilseeds, pulses and vegetables are also grown. Livestock rearing, small-scale trading, transport, and services supplement household incomes, and many residents commute to Bardhaman town and other nearby urban centres for work in shops, institutions, and small industries.
Bhatar is linked to the district headquarters at Bardhaman by road. The driving distance between Bhatar and Bardhaman is about 23 km, which typically takes a little over half an hour by road. Bardhaman town on the northern bank of the Damodar serves as the main rail and administrative hub, with broad gauge connections on the Howrah-Bardhaman main and chord lines linking the area to Kolkata and the rest of the state. Other nearby towns in Purba Bardhaman, such as Memari, are around 55 to 60 km away from Bhatar by road, and serve as additional market and service centres for local residents. Smaller growth centres within a 20 to 40 km belt provide markets, colleges, and health facilities for Bhatar’s residents. Kolkata, the state capital, lies around 100 to 120 km away by rail and road via Bardhaman.
The SIR-induced deletion of 10,737 voters is likely to pinch the Trinamool Congress in Bhatar, but may not be enough by itself to overturn its clear advantage. The party led the BJP by more than 30,000 votes in both the 2021 Assembly election and the 2024 Lok Sabha poll in this segment, which gives it a substantial cushion going into the 2026 elections. The once dominant arch-rivals, the CPI(M) and the Congress, now stand marginalised in spite of their alliance, with the Left Front-Congress combine reduced to less than 10 per cent of the vote and limited ability to influence the outcome.
The BJP would like to see some revival of the Left-Congress space so that the Trinamool’s Muslim vote base is split, and it will also need to win greater confidence among the sizeable SC and ST communities if it wants to mount a serious challenge. A pruned voter roll alone is unlikely to help it open its account in Bhatar without a broader social and organisational breakthrough. For now, the constituency looks set for another Trinamool versus BJP contest, with the balance tilted towards the Trinamool unless deeper shifts occur in the run-up to the 2026 Assembly elections.
(Ajay Jha)
