New Delhi: Sabina Yasmin, the mother of a 10-year-old girl killed in a bomb allegedly hurled by Trinamool Congress supporters as they celebrated a 2025 by-poll win, was trailing TMC’s Alifa Ahmed by 24,403 votes in Nadia’s Kaliganj constituency after six rounds of voting, results for West Bengal assembly elections released Monday showed.
Contesting on a CPI(M) ticket, Yasmin is trailing in third place.
Alifa Ahmed had won 36,221 votes till 1.50 pm, Election Commission of India data showed. On her heels was BJP’s Bapan Ghosh who had secured 29,070 votes.
Yasmin had got only 11,818 votes till 1.50 pm.
Tamanna (10) died after TMC supporters, believed to have been drunk at the time, threw a bomb while celebrating Alifa Ahmed’s victory in the Kaliganj by-poll last year. The bomb hit the 10-year-old girl, who succumbed to the injuries.
Yasmin, while campaigning ahead of the April election, went village-to-village but deliberately kept her daughter’s death off the poll agenda. She said she did not “seek sympathy” for her daughter’s death; instead chose to highlight the deteriorating condition of local hospitals, the closure of industries, and the exodus of workers from the state.
Ahmed, the incumbent MLA, is a former IT professional who had left her job and entered politics after her father—then the Kaliganj MLA—died of a cardiac arrest. She had polled twice as many votes as the BJP candidate.
A road show and public interaction programme were carried out by Polit Bureau member and @CPIM_WESTBENGAL State Secretary @salimdotcomrade and State Committee member Shatarup Ghosh in support of the Left Front-nominated CPI(M) candidate for Kaligunj Assembly Constituency, Sabina… pic.twitter.com/zivbxsKqMw
— CPI (M) (@cpimspeak) April 28, 2026
Ahmed emphasised the TMC’s development record in the constituency and promised continuity. She distanced herself from Tamanna’s death, calling it “unfortunate” but maintaining that the TMC government had already taken action.
BJP candidate Ghosh, a party worker, campaigned primarily on law and order and healthcare access, citing Tamanna’s killing as evidence of TMC hooliganism.
Kaliganj has a fractured polling history. The Trinamool Congress wrested the seat from the Left Front-affiliated Revolutionary Socialist Party in its sweeping 2011 victory, only to lose it to the Congress in 2016 by a margin of roughly 1,000 votes. The party recovered it in 2021, trouncing the BJP that year, in a result that was a bright spot for TMC amid rising saffron support across West Bengal.
This election result carries wider implications. A comfortable TMC win would reaffirm its grip on Nadia district and signal that anti-incumbency and local anger over political violence have not significantly dented its support. A strong showing—or even an upset—by the CPI(M) would bolster hopes of a grassroots revival for the Left. For the BJP, any meaningful improvement in vote share would offer evidence of traction in a constituency where it has traditionally struggled.
(Edited by Prerna Madan)
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