As the Kaliganj Assembly constituency in Nadia district gears up for its by-election on June 19, the political battle lines are being redrawn. The seat fell vacant following the death of TMC MLA Nasiruddin Ahmed, who had won the 2021 election with over 52 percent of the vote.
Wasting no time, the TMC has nominated Alifa Ahmed, daughter of the late MLA, as their candidate. Banking on the sympathy factor and her father’s legacy, Alifa has already started campaigning in full swing, aiming to retain the party’s hold over the seat.
In a late-night move on Friday, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge announced Kabil Uuddin Sheikh as the party’s candidate. The Congress, however, had to navigate internal alliance complexities before confirming its nomination.
The Congress entry did not come easy. CPI(M) state secretary Mohammad Salim had initially declared that the Left Front would contest the seat, with the CPI(M) expressing keen interest in fielding its own candidate from Kaliganj for the first time in years.
This triggered a standoff within the Left Front, as the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) claimed historical ownership of the constituency, having contested it until 2011. The seat was handed over to Congress in 2016 and 2021 under the Left-Congress seat-sharing agreement.
A 90-minute-long meeting of the Left Front on last Wednesday evening ended in deadlock. RSP leader Tapan Hore even wrote to Left Front chairman Biman Basu, restating the party’s demand to contest. However, smaller Left partners pushed for backing the Congress to ensure long-term alliance cohesion.
Eventually, under alliance pressure, the CPI(M) agreed to support the Congress candidate, viewing it as a necessary compromise to preserve the unity of the Left-Congress front. While the decision avoided a full-blown rupture, it exposed persistent fault lines within the alliance.
BJP Yet to announce candidate
The BJP, which secured 30 percent of the vote in 2021 and finished second, is yet to name its candidate, adding suspense to the three-way political contest. In the previous election, TMC’s Nasiruddin had defeated the BJP candidate by nearly 46,000 votes.
Historically, Kaliganj was a RSP bastion from 1977 to 2011. The Congress won in 2016, but their victorious candidate Hasanuzzaman Sheikh later defected to the TMC. Despite a weak performance in 2021, when Congress finished third with 12 percent of the vote, the party is back in the contest with Left support.
With the TMC and Congress ready, the Left Front split over strategy, and the BJP still undecided, the Kaliganj by-election promises to be more than a local contest. It could serve as a testing ground for political realignments and alliance strengths ahead of the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections.
