The seat was established in 1951 and has gone to the polls 17 times. In 1951 and 1957, it was a twin-member constituency, won first by the Congress and then by the CPI. Since then, the CPI(M) has won it five times, the CPI three times, the Congress three times, last in 1967, the regional Jharkhand Party four times and the Trinamool Congress twice.
In 2011, the CPI(M) wrested the seat from the Jharkhand Party, with Dibakar Hansda defeating sitting MLA Chunibala Hansda, wife of founder of the Jharkhand Party (Naren) faction, by 7,610 votes. In 2016, the Trinamool Congress opened its account in Binpur as its nominee Khagendranath Hembram defeated sitting CPI(M) MLA Dibakar Hansda by 49,323 votes, and the party retained the seat in 2021 when Debnath Hansda beat the BJP’s Palan Soren by a reduced margin of 39,494 votes.
The once dominant CPI(M) has seen dramatic erosion. Dibakar Hansda, who had won in 2011, slipped to a distant third in 2021 with just 4.42 per cent of the vote, a fall of 22.30 percentage points from his 2016 share and a decline of 36.75 percentage points over the decade since his 2011 win. Much of this erosion appears to have benefited the BJP. The party, which polled only 5.28 per cent in 2011 and finished fifth, rose to 8.89 per cent and third place in 2016, and then surged to 32.19 per cent in 2021, gaining 23.30 percentage points over 2016 and 26.91 percentage points over 2011 to become the principal challenger to the Trinamool in Binpur.
Parliamentary voting in the Binpur segment also underscores this trend. In 2009, the CPI(M) led the Congress by 27,410 votes here. By 2014, the Trinamool Congress had moved ahead, leading the CPI(M) by 46,857 votes. In 2019, the Trinamool narrowly led the BJP by 3,059 votes in this segment, but by 2024 it had widened that lead to 23,942 votes, signalling a recovery for the Trinamool at the Lok Sabha level even as the BJP remains a serious contender.
Following the 2025 Special Intensive Revision, Binpur Assembly constituency had 218,979 voters on the draft electoral roll, a decline of 13,182 from 232,161 in 2024. Earlier, the electorate stood at 224,036 in 2021, 216,229 in 2019, 206,919 in 2016 and 179,732 in 2011. Scheduled Tribes make up 35.34 per cent of the voters and Scheduled Castes 16.71 per cent, while Muslims are present only in minuscule numbers, estimated at fewer than five per cent. The constituency is overwhelmingly rural, with 97.94 per cent rural and just 2.06 per cent urban voters. Turnout has been consistently high: 82.08 per cent in 2011, 84.48 per cent in 2016, 82.85 per cent in 2019, 84.36 per cent in 2021 and 81.81 per cent in 2024.
Binpur lies in the western part of Jhargram district, within the Jangalmahal belt that marks the eastern fringe of the Chota Nagpur Plateau. The Binpur II block headquarters is at Belpahari, which is about 50 to 55 km from Jhargram town by road, but the Binpur area itself is considerably closer to the district headquarters, with Binpur located roughly 19 to 20 km from Jhargram. Nearby urban centres include Jhargram town to the south-east and small market towns in adjoining blocks of Jhargram district, such as Gopiballavpur and Jamboni, as well as border-adjacent towns in neighbouring Jharkhand’s East Singhbhum district. Kolkata, the state capital, lies over 170 to 190 km to the east by road and is typically reached via Jhargram and the national highway corridor. To the west and south-west, the constituency is not far from the Jharkhand and Odisha borders, with the plateau and forest belt running into Ghatshila in Jharkhand and parts of northern Odisha.
The topography of Binpur reflects the gradual descent of the Chota Nagpur Plateau, creating an undulating landscape of low hills, ridges and lateritic uplands interspersed with narrow valleys. Soils are predominantly lateritic, with around 95 per cent of cultivated land in Binpur II block having lateritic soil and only a small share alluvial, making agriculture heavily dependent on the monsoon and limited irrigation. The area is drought-prone, and recurring water stress in the dry season guides both cropping patterns and migration. Forests and scrub cover significant tracts, and numerous small streams and rivulets, which ultimately feed larger river systems, cut across the constituency.
Agriculture, forest-based livelihoods and casual labour form the backbone of the local economy. Farmers typically grow paddy in low-lying pockets, along with coarse cereals, pulses and oilseeds on higher ground, while many households rely on the collection of forest produce, seasonal migration for work, employment under government schemes and small-scale trading. Road connectivity has improved over the past two decades, with better links to Jhargram and neighbouring blocks, and basic infrastructure such as schools, health centres and electrification has expanded, though access and quality still vary considerably across tribal villages.
The SIR has added a new layer of uncertainty to the political contest in Binpur. Despite the constituency’s very small Muslim population, 13,182 names have been struck off the rolls, officially on grounds such as death, duplication and out-migration, but without any caste or community-wise breakdown being made public. This opacity has left all parties guessing about which social groups have borne the brunt of deletions. For the BJP, which has grown rapidly here over the past decade, the pruned draft roll could, if it remains largely unchanged in the final list, offer an opportunity to narrow the gap with the Trinamool Congress.
However, the BJP will still need to deepen its reach among ST and SC voters, who decisively shape outcomes in this seat, if it wants to convert that opportunity into a win. The Left Front-Congress alliance has shrunk to below five per cent of the vote in the last two elections and has effectively become irrelevant in the constituency. Barring a dramatic shift, Binpur in 2026 is set up as a direct contest between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP, with the Trinamool starting ahead but having to remain wary of the BJP’s steady and consistent growth across both Assembly and Lok Sabha polls.
(Ajay Jha)
