West Bengal is voting in the second and final phase of its 2026 Assembly elections on April 29, with over 142 seats across Kolkata and South Bengal going to the polls. The Election Commission has set up around 41,000 polling centres, more than 95% of them web‑casted, and over 3.2 crore voters are set to decide the fate of 1,448 candidates, including 220 women and 4.12 lakh first‑time electors. The results will be declared on May 4.
This phase is critical for the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), which dominated these 142 seats in the 2021 elections, winning 123 out of them, while the BJP–CPI(M) alliance seeks a major breakthrough in TMC strongholds such as Kolkata’s southern and eastern belts, North and South 24 Parganas, Nadia, and Howrah. The phase features high‑profile contests, including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Bhabanipur and Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari’s Nandigram‑linked battles, giving the day national‑level political significance.
Voting began at 7:00 am with heavy security deployment and systematic checks on EVMs and VVPATs; Election Commission officials reported generally smooth start‑ups, with only isolated incidents such as BJP MLA Ratna Debnath flagging a potential EVM‑related concern at her polling booth. The first‑phase turnout was already near 92% across 152 seats, and early‑morning queues in constituencies such as Baranagar, Shibpur, and Tollyganj indicate another robust participation today.
With the TMC banking on its grassroots network and incumbency edge, while the BJP leans on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s extensive rallies in the Matua belt and North 24 Parganas, the outcome of these 142 seats will effectively determine whether Bengal returns another TMC‑led government or hands power to the BJP‑driven alliance. The live‑voting day is thus a culmination of a high‑stakes, two‑phase contest that has been framed by the electorate as a choice between “continuity and stability” versus “change and a new political order.”
