The Trinamool Congress registered its maiden victory here by bringing to an end the CPI(M)’s chain of six consecutive wins, with Churamani Mahato as its candidate. Mahato defeated sitting MLA Rabi Lal Maitra of the CPI(M) by 32,020 votes and retained the seat in 2016 by a bigger margin of 49,558 votes against his CPI(M) rival Pulin Bihari Baske. The Trinamool fielded Khagendra Nath Mahata in 2021. He beat the BJP’s Sanjit Mahato by 23,768 votes, a difference of 11.90 per cent.
The picture has been more mixed in the Lok Sabha elections. In 2009, the Trinamool Congress did not contest the Jhargram parliamentary constituency, as the seat went to the Congress under their seat-sharing arrangement. The CPI(M) led in the Gopiballavpur segment by 47,284 votes. After the alliance broke, the Trinamool contested the 2014 Lok Sabha election and established a huge lead of 44,406 votes over the CPI(M). The BJP turned the tables in 2019, leading the Trinamool by 6,829 votes, before the Trinamool recovered in 2024 to lead the BJP by 22,369 votes.
Gopiballavpur is a general category Assembly constituency established in 1951. It has voted in all 17 Assembly elections held in West Bengal so far. Of these, the CPI(M) won six consecutive terms between 1982 and 2006. The Congress has taken the seat five times, the Trinamool Congress three times, the Samyukta Socialist Party twice and an Independent politician once in 1977.
Gopiballavpur had 235,733 registered voters in 2024, up from 226,417 in 2021, 222,139 in 2019, 206,002 in 2016 and 177,748 in 2011. Scheduled Tribes form the largest group, with 24.26 per cent of voters, while Scheduled Castes account for 19.90 per cent. Muslims are present only in minuscule numbers. It is an overwhelmingly rural constituency with no urban voters on its rolls. Turnout has remained high and dips only slightly in the Lok Sabha polls. In Assembly elections, it stood at 89.34 per cent in 2011, 87.78 per cent in 2016 and 88.03 per cent in 2021. During the Lok Sabha elections, it was 85.61 per cent in 2019 and 84.30 per cent in 2024. Gopiballavpur is a segment of the Jhargram Lok Sabha seat and is made up of four gram panchayats of Gopiballavpur II block, nine gram panchayats of Jhargram block and the entire Sankrail block.
Historically, Gopiballavpur formed part of the Mayurbhanj princely state of Odisha and lay in a frontier zone between present-day West Bengal and Odisha. The area was earlier known as Kashipur and, according to local Vaishnava tradition, took the name Gopiballavpur from Gopiballav, a form of Sri Krishna, after the saint Shyamananda Mahaprabhu brought water from the Yamuna and established a temple here. Over time, it grew as a riverbank settlement and local markets serving villages along the Subarnarekha River.
The town stands near the Subarnarekha River in the south-western corner of Jhargram district, close to the borders with Odisha and Jharkhand. The wider region lies on the eastern fringe of the Chotanagpur plateau and is marked by low hills, lateritic uplands, sal forests and undulating terrain, quite different from the flat alluvial plains of central and southern Bengal. Agriculture, forest-based livelihoods and seasonal migration for work shape much of the local economy, with small markets, haats and government offices in Gopiballavpur town tying the scattered villages together.
Roads connect Gopiballavpur to Jhargram town and nearby districts and states. It lies about 42 to 43 km from Jhargram by road. The Subarnarekha valley provides a natural corridor towards Odisha and Jharkhand, and the constituency lies within driving distance of towns such as Baripada in the Mayurbhanj district of Odisha and the industrial belt around Jamshedpur in Jharkhand.
The Trinamool Congress goes into the 2026 Assembly election in Gopiballavpur on a strong wicket, with three successive Assembly victories and a recovery from the BJP’s lead in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. It still cannot afford to take the BJP lightly, as the BJP has already surged ahead here once in a parliamentary poll and has been strengthening its appeal among Scheduled Tribe voters. The fact that this area was once part of Odisha, which now has a BJP government headed by a tribal Chief Minister, and that the President of India, Droupadi Murmu, is a tribal leader from Odisha, is likely to make an impression on tribal voters. The Left Front-Congress alliance is so marginalised, after polling less than 3.50 per cent of the vote in each of the last two elections, that it is unlikely to influence the result. The 2026 contest will be decided by which party can better connect with the 44.16 per cent of voters from the Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste communities, and whether the Trinamool can maintain its edge over an ambitious BJP in this seat.
(Ajay Jha)
