Medinipur, also spelt Midnapore, is a district-level town in Paschim Medinipur district and an Assembly constituency that forms one of the seven segments of the Medinipur Lok Sabha seat. The seat consists of the Midnapore municipality, four gram panchayats of the Midnapore Sadar community development block, and five gram panchayats of the Salboni block.
Created in 1957, it has gone to the polls 17 times, including a 2024 by-election. The CPI dominated for nearly four decades with 10 wins, taking four terms between 1967 and 1972 and another six between 1982 and 2006, interrupted only by a Janata Party win in 1977 by 3,461 votes. The Congress won the first two elections in 1957 and 1962, while the Trinamool Congress halted the CPIтАЩs run in 2011 and has since won four times in a row, including the 2024 bypoll.
Trinamool had to wait through two straight defeats at the hands of the CPI in 2001 and 2006. Its breakthrough came in 2011, when Mrigendra Nath Maiti defeated sitting CPI MLA Santosh Rana by 28,220 votes, and followed up with a larger winning margin of 32,987 votes in 2016. In 2021, Trinamool fielded popular Bengali film and television actor June Malia, who beat the BJPтАЩs Shamit Dash by 24,397 votes. June resigned as MLA after winning a Lok Sabha seat in 2024, triggering a by-election in which TrinamoolтАЩs Sujoy Hazra defeated Shamit Das of the BJP by 33,996 votes.
Lok Sabha election trends from the Medinipur Assembly segment also demonstrate TrinamoolтАЩs strength, but with a much stronger BJP performance than in the Assembly polls. The Trinamool has generally led here in parliamentary elections; yet, the BJP went ahead by 16,641 votes in 2019 and then cut the gap to just 2,170 votes behind Trinamool in 2024, indicating a near neck-and-neck contest.
Medinipur Assembly seat had 291,462 registered voters in 2024, up from 280,061 in 2021, 266,395 in 2019, 251,148 in 2016 and 215,287 in 2011. Scheduled Castes form the largest bloc at 14.74 per cent of voters, Scheduled Tribes account for 10.05 per cent and Muslims 10.80 per cent of the electorate. The constituency is almost evenly split between town and countryside, with 50.51 per cent rural voters and 49.49 per cent urban. Turnout has been consistently high with 87.95 per cent in 2011, 84.95 per cent in 2016, 84.53 per cent in 2019, 85.39 per cent in 2021 and 81.41 per cent in 2024.
Medinipur and the wider region have a long and layered history. There are differing views on the origin of the townтАЩs name. One account links it to Medinimata, a local Shakti deity called тАЬmother of the worldтАЭ, while another traces it to Medinikar, a feudal ruler who is believed to have founded the town in the 13th or early 14th century and written the work тАЬMedinikoshтАЭ. Archaeological finds point to strong influences of Jainism and Buddhism in ancient times, and coins of the Gupta ruler Samudragupta have been discovered near the town. The wider undivided Midnapore region once fell under the kingdoms of Shashanka and Harshavardhana and later under the Bengal sultans and the Mughals. In 1760, Midnapore, along with Burdwan and Chittagong, was transferred to the East India Company by Mir Qasim, and the district, which included Dhalbhum (now mostly in Jharkhand), became a key centre of British administration. The town and its surroundings also played a role in later anti-colonial movements, with several freedom fighters emerging from the district.
Medinipur town stands on the banks of the Kangsabati River, also known locally as the Kasai or Cossye, in the south-western part of West Bengal. The terrain here is part of the transition zone between the undulating lateritic uplands of the Chota Nagpur plateau fringe and the flatter alluvial plains further east. The Kangsabati enters Paschim Medinipur from Bankura and splits near Keshpur, with one branch flowing towards Daspur and the Rupnarayan and the other towards the Kaliaghai to form the Haldi. The land around Medinipur is gently rolling, with red and lateritic soils in parts, and more alluvial patches closer to river valleys. The area is occasionally affected by floods in the Kangsabati basin.
The local economy combines administration, trade, services and education in the town with agriculture and allied activities in the rural belts. Paddy is the principal crop, supported by the Kangsabati irrigation project, which was launched in the 1950s to bring water to large areas of Paschim Medinipur, Purba Medinipur, Bankura and Hooghly districts. Other crops include potato, oilseeds and vegetables. The river and associated irrigation canals support intensive cultivation, while the town serves as a market hub for surrounding villages. Medinipur also benefits from its proximity to KharagpurтАЩs industrial and railway hub just across the river, where the KangsabatiтАЩs course helped the growth of the Kharagpur industrial belt.
Medinipur is well connected by both rail and road. The town lies on the South Eastern Railway line towards Kharagpur and Jhargram, with regular trains linking it to Howrah and Kolkata. The rail distance from Kolkata to Midnapore is about 131 km, while by road it is around 126 km. Kharagpur is just across the Kangsabati, functioning almost as a twin-town and major rail junction. Within Paschim Medinipur, nearby centres include Kharagpur at roughly 15 km, Jhargram about 40 to 50 km to the west, Ghatal around 50 to 60 km to the east and Garbeta roughly 30 to 40 km to the north east. Neighbouring districts like Bankura, Purulia and Purba Medinipur are within driving distance, and key towns of adjoining Jharkhand, such as Ghatshila and Jamshedpur, lie a little over 100 to about 150 km away.
For the 2026 Assembly elections, the Trinamool Congress can draw comfort from its record of four straight Assembly victories and leads in three of the four Lok Sabha elections since 2009 from this segment. At the same time, the BJP has demonstrated real strength by taking the lead once in a parliamentary poll and staying almost level with Trinamool in 2024, when the gap shrank to barely a couple of thousand votes. The Left Front-Congress alliance has declined steeply in Medinipur, slipping to the margins and unlikely to influence the outcome unless there is an improbable revival. This sets up a direct and closely fought contest between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP in 2026, with Trinamool starting slightly ahead but facing a determined challenge for the Medinipur seat.
(Ajay Jha)
