5 reasons why Mamata Banerjee remains Bengal’s biggest political brand — can TMC chief win a fourth term?

Kolkata: A five-minute walk from the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) camp office in Bhabanipur brings you to Netaji Bhawan—a heritage building preserved as a memorial and research centre dedicated to the life of anti-colonial nationalist Subhas Chandra Bose. Manohar Mondal, now in his late 60s, says he has been looking after the premises for nearly three decades.

As you strike up a conversation about the upcoming Assembly polls, Mondal says the Trinamool Congress candidate—and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee—is likely to retain the high-profile Bhabanipur seat in south Kolkata.

“This area is dominated by TMC councillors, so the party could well win again,” he says.

But as Mondal warms to the conversation, he invokes a word that has been echoing across Bengal ahead of the polls: “People want poribortan—a change this time,” he says in Bengali.

From Kolkata in the south to Murshidabad in the north, and across North 24 Parganas in the southeast, signs of anti-incumbency against Mamata Banerjee’s 15-year rule are hard to miss. In conversations, voters point to unemployment, political violence, and allegations of minority appeasement.

Yet, despite this undercurrent of discontent, Banerjee remains by far the most popular leader Bengal has seen since the heyday of Jyoti Basu, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) stalwart who governed the state from 1977 to 2000. It remains to be seen if she comes to power for the fourth time on 4 May, when the results will be declared.

Shot to fame in 1984

Banerjee shot to fame for the first time in 1984 when she defeated the veteran communist Somnath Chatterjee to win the Jadavpur Lok Sabha seat. That was her first Lok Sabha election. And in 1998, she broke away from the West Bengal Congress to set up her own party—a ‘Trinamool’ or grassroots, Congress that claimed to be closer to the people.

The Trinamool Congress has swept assembly elections in 2011, 2016 and 2021. Even in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the TMC won 29 of the 42 seats in West Bengal. This was 7 more than it won in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Mamata Banerjee has kept winning in West Bengal for a mix of political strategy, welfare delivery, and opposition weakness. Here are five main reasons behind her success ahead of one more high-stakes assembly election in West Bengal

1 - Strong personal brand

After decades in politics, Mamata has successfully projected herself as a grassroots, anti-elite leader, despite being in power since 2011. The ‘Didi’ image—accessible, combative, street-fighter has helped her connect across class lines in a way many rivals haven’t matched, senior journalist Suvojit Bagchi tells me at a café in the upmarket Ballygunge neighbourhood of Kolkata.

“The middle and upper middle class see her as a ruffian but for the Bengali poor, while the rest of the TMC are goondas, Mamata is a great leader,” says Bagchi.

People who followed Mamata Banerjee’s brand of politics say she fits in West Bengal’s anti-centre rhetoric. History tells us that if you have to be a good leader in West Bengal, you have to oppose the Centre, they say.

2- Beneficial welfare network

One of the key reasons for Mamata Banerjee’s popularity has been her party’s welfare schemes, such as Kanyashree, Lakshmir Bhandar, and Swasthya Sathi. Under the popular ‘Lakshmir Bhandar’ scheme, for example, women from the general category receive ₹1,000 per month, while those belonging to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities get ₹1,200 per month.

These schemes have created direct, visible benefits and have seen lower leakages than in other states, says Bagchi.

In response to a question on the TMC welfare schemes during a press conference in Kolkata in early April, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), if it wins the elections, would not stop any schemes of the previous government.

Many households—particularly women—see a tangible link between their income security and their government, which has been translating into votes. In fact, while travelling to Bengal, this reporter observed that one reason for the silent Bengali voter is the benefits they receive through these schemes.

3- Muslim votes

At 27 per cent of the population (2011 census), Muslims make up a significant share of West Bengal’s electorate. Mamata Banerjee has largely retained this bloc, especially when contests become polarised against parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party.

In the 2021 assembly elections, the TMC secured an overwhelming 75–83% of Muslim votes, helping them win 106 of 112 Muslim-influenced constituencies. In the 2026 elections, too, Muslims are generally expected to vote for TMC, more so due to mass deletions of minority votes in the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Muslim-dominated districts such as Murshidabad and Malda.

Political analysts said the BJP at the Centre has suited Mamata Banerjee for this reason too.

“The moment Congress comes to power at theCentre, Mamata Banerjee will start losing her clout. There are many reasons for it, the foremost being that she will lose her minority support to Congress,” Abdul Matin, Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University, tells me during the anti-SIR protest at Kolkata’s Park Circus on 14 April.

4-Women Support

The women voters of West Bengal were considered the staunchest supporters of the Left till Mamata Banerjee-led TMC swept state elections in 2011. A Lokniti-CSDS post-poll survey from 2011 revealed that 44 per cent of women voted for TMC while 37 per cent voted for the Left-Congress alliance.

In 2016, 47 per cent of women again voted for TMC, while 35 per cent voted for the Left. Though women voters have slowly shifted toward the BJP, the TMC still had the upper hand in the 2021 elections, when Mamata Banerjee’s party won 49 per cent of the women's vote against the BJP’s 37 per cent.

Mamata Banerjee cultivated women's support through targeted welfare schemes, according to analysts. “In the 2011 assembly election, her campaign wasn’t just a run for the office – it felt like insurgency. She wasn’t positioning herself as an establishment figure or an elite leader. She was ‘Didi’, the elder sister who lived alone usually wearing simple hawai chappal and draped often in blue and white,” Sayantan Ghosh writes in his recent book – Battleground Bengal.

“Her governance recognized women not as auxiliary voters but as decisive actors,” writes Ghosh.

5 – Mamata vs Who?

Despite years of anti-incumbency against Mamata, the opposition has so far been unable to consolidate it against her. In the 2021 assembly polls, despite an anti-incumbency of ten years, Mamata Banerjee’s TMC defied exit polls and won the election by a landslide, bagging 2015 seats in the 294-member Bengal assembly.

Mamata Banerjee’s enduring success can also be attributed to the opposition’s inability to produce a credible, charismatic leader who can challenge her stature, Ghosh says in his book.

“Even the BJP, which has emerged as a primary opposition to the TMC after the Left’s collapse, has failed to struggle to cultivate a leader who can rival Banerjee’s appeal, he writes, highlighting the BJP’s reliance on its central leadership rather than a homegrown face.