Trinamool Congress has suffered a conspicuous pre-poll embarrassment in Murshidabad after Abdur Razzak, the outgoing MLA from Jalangi, resigned from the party days before West Bengal votes in a two-phase Assembly election, sharpening attention on dissent inside the ruling camp at a point when Mamata Banerjee’s organisation is seeking maximum cohesion. Polling is due on April 23 and April 29, with counting on May 4. Razzak, a three-time legislator from Jalangi, said he was quitting after being denied a ticket from the same seat, turning what might have remained a local grievance into a wider symbol of discomfort over candidate selection. His departure is politically awkward because Murshidabad is one of the districts where Trinamool has built deep strength, winning 20 of its 22 Assembly seats in 2021, and because the rebellion has surfaced in a minority-dominated belt where every sign of factional weakness is scrutinised closely by rivals.
The immediate dispute is over nominations. Trinamool has fielded Babar Ali from Jalangi, while Domkal has gone to Humayun Kabir, a retired IPS officer and outgoing Debra MLA. Razzak has accused party figures in the district, including Soumik Hossain of Raninagar, of influencing the denial of his renomination in order to expand control across the Domkal subdivision. Hossain has rejected the allegation, saying he has no role in deciding tickets. The exchange has laid bare an internal struggle that the opposition will try to present as evidence of fatigue in a party seeking another term.
Razzak did more than resign. He publicly predicted defeats for Trinamool in Jalangi, Domkal and Raninagar, and attacked the party’s internal functioning, alleging a lack of transparency and honesty. Murshidabad district president Apurba Sarkar dismissed the resignation as politically inconsequential and claimed Razzak had long maintained links with opposition camps. Yet the very need for the party to rebut such charges underlines the sensitivity of the moment, especially in a constituency network where local loyalties and personal equations often matter as much as headline campaign themes.
The timing compounds the damage. West Bengal’s 294-seat election is being held in two phases, with 152 constituencies voting first and 142 in the second round. The Election Commission has said more than 3.6 crore electors across 16 districts are eligible to vote in the first phase alone, and Murshidabad has the highest number of voters among those districts at 50.26 lakh. That scale makes organisational discipline a premium asset. Any disruption in mobilisation, booth management or turnout efforts in a district as electorally large as Murshidabad can ripple far beyond a single seat.
This is not the only stress point in the Bengal contest. Banerjee has been campaigning aggressively while accusing the Election Commission and the Bharatiya Janata Party of trying to skew the contest through the SIR voter verification exercise and other alleged procedural pressures. The Commission, for its part, has taken a hard public line on law and order, warning that repolling will be ordered wherever violence or disruption is found. That has put border and minority-heavy districts such as Murshidabad under intense watch, making every instance of candidate rebellion more politically charged.
Trinamool still enters the election with structural advantages, including a well-developed local network and Banerjee’s personal hold over large sections of the electorate. But candidate churn has created vulnerabilities. Reports from within the state campaign suggest the denial of tickets to sitting legislators has produced resentment in several pockets, and Razzak’s exit is the clearest public rupture so far in Murshidabad. For the opposition, especially Congress and the Left in districts where they retain residual organisational memory, such openings can be useful even if they do not immediately alter the statewide balance.
The broader electoral field also carries reputational risks for all major parties. An analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms and West Bengal Election Watch said a large share of candidates in the first phase face criminal cases, including nominees from Trinamool and the BJP. That finding feeds a larger argument, often heard across Bengal’s campaign trail, that the election is no longer only about ideology or welfare delivery but also about control of local political machinery, candidate credibility and the management of factional alliances on the ground.