Onda has voted in 16 Assembly elections since its inception. It was a twin-seat constituency in 1957. The Congress party won both seats on offer in 1957 and added two more victories in 1962 and 1967. The seat then turned Left, voting for the Forward Bloc in 1969 and the CPI(M) in 1971, before the Congress grabbed it once more in 1972. The Left’s long run began in 1977 and lasted 34 years. During this period, the Forward Bloc swept all seven terms, with senior leader Anil Mukherjee winning six consecutive times before Tarapada Chakrabarti replaced him in 2006. Chakrabarti trounced Trinamool’s Abeda Bibi by 47,695 votes.
The Trinamool Congress finally broke through in 2011 when its nominee, Arup Kumar Khan, defeated the sitting Forward Bloc MLA, Tarapada Chakrabarti, by 596 votes. Khan retained the seat in 2016 by defeating Forward Bloc’s Manik Mukherjee by an increased margin of 10,848 votes. The BJP then catapulted ahead in 2021. Its candidate Amarnath Sakha defeated sitting Trinamool MLA Arun Kumar Khan by 11,551 votes, with Forward Bloc’s Tarapada Chakrabarti tumbling to a distant third with only 6.92 per cent of the vote. Forward Bloc’s vote share fell by 28.31 percentage points from 2016. The Trinamool Congress largely held its ground, with a marginal 0.67 percentage point decline, while the BJP’s vote share surged by 32.63 percentage points.
The BJP’s growing popularity was also evident in the Lok Sabha polls. In 2019, it established a lead of 26,373 votes over the Trinamool Congress in the Onda Assembly segment and retained that lead in 2024, though by a reduced margin of 5,940 votes. Earlier, the CPI(M) and the Trinamool had traded the lead, with the CPI(M) ahead of the Trinamool by 20,847 votes in 2009 and the Trinamool ahead of the CPI(M) by 19,020 votes in 2014.
Following the 2025 Special Intensive Revision, Onda Assembly constituency had 232,744 voters on the draft electoral roll, a sharp decline of 37,811 from 270,555 voters in 2024. Onda had earlier seen large increases in the number of registered voters with each election. The number of voters rose by 13,649 in three years between 2019 and 2021, from 243,389 in 2019 to 256,906 in 2021. Before that, 14,812 voters were added between 2016 and 2019, as the roll went up from 228,577 in 2016 to 243,389 in 2019. Between 2011 and 2016, the electorate grew by 54,562 voters, from 174,015 in 2011 to 228,577 in 2016.
Despite these sharp increases, Muslim voters formed only 8.90 per cent of the electorate, compared to 32.70 per cent of the Scheduled Castes and 4.06 per cent of the Scheduled Tribes. Onda is a purely rural constituency with no urban voters on its rolls, so such jumps could hardly be explained by inward migration for work or normal biological growth alone. Amid its volatile politics and shifting loyalties, turnout has stayed high. It was 87.20 per cent in 2011, 86.67 per cent in 2016, 86.08 per cent in 2019, 88.06 per cent in 2021, and 83.26 per cent in 2024.
Historically, the Onda area formed part of the old Bishnupur kingdom and shares the wider Bankura district’s heritage, which is closely tied to the rise and fall of the Hindu Rajas of Bishnupur. For nearly a millennium, up to the advent of British rule, the history of present-day Bankura overlapped with that of the Bishnupur Raj, whose influence extended over much of this belt before decline set in with Maratha incursions and territorial losses to Burdwan in the 18th century.
Onda lies in the eastern part of Bankura district, in the Bankura Sadar subdivision, and serves as the headquarters of the Onda community development block. The terrain here is part of the transitional zone between the plains and the low hills of the Chota Nagpur Plateau fringe. It is gently undulating, with lateritic as well as alluvial patches, and is drained by rivers and rivulets linked to the Dwarakeswar and other systems that support agriculture.
The local economy is driven mainly by agriculture and allied activities. Paddy is the principal crop, while other crops and some horticulture and livestock activities supplement rural incomes.
Onda is connected to Bankura and other parts of the district by road. It lies about 21 km east of Bankura town, the district headquarters. Bankura itself is roughly 170 km from Kolkata by road, with trains linking Bankura station to Kolkata. From Onda, residents typically travel to Bankura for major rail, administrative, health and educational facilities.
Other nearby towns in Bankura district include Bishnupur, about 30 to 35 km away, Sonamukhi around 35 to 40 km, and Barjora and Beliatore in the 20 to 30 km belt. Larger industrial centres such as Durgapur and Asansol in neighbouring Paschim Bardhaman district lie within 70 to 110 km and form part of the broader labour catchment for residents seeking non-farm work.
The deletion of nearly 38,000 voters from Onda’s draft roll is bound to turn the 2026 Assembly election calculus on its head. Officially, the names removed are meant to be those of illegal immigrants, dead, migrated, and bogus voters, but in the absence of community- and caste-wise figures, the precise impact remains unclear. The sharp reaction of the Trinamool Congress suggests it believes the SIR has hit its support base harder in this constituency. Even if some names are restored before the final roll is published, Onda is still likely to see a large net decline in voters.
On paper, this purge appears to strengthen the BJP’s position as the party already enjoyed an edge after winning the 2021 Assembly contest and leading the Trinamool in both the preceding and the subsequent Lok Sabha polls in this segment. The Left Front-Congress alliance, after slipping below seven per cent of the vote in recent elections, seems to have faded from serious contention, leaving the field effectively to a BJP versus Trinamool Congress duel. The onus will be on the Trinamool Congress to show that it was not banking on “questionable” names now struck off the rolls to overturn the BJP’s advantage. Onda, as a result, is poised to be one of the more closely watched and politically charged contests of the 2026 Assembly elections.
(Ajay Jha)
