Nestled at the northern tip of the Sundarbans and close to the international border with Bangladesh, Hingalganj is a block-level town in the Basirhat subdivision of North 24 Parganas district in West Bengal. It was long regarded as a communist stronghold that has recently been breached by the Trinamool Congress. Hingalganj Assembly constituency, created in 1967 and reserved for the Scheduled Castes, is composed of the Hingalganj community development block, five gram panchayats of the Hasnabad block and Khulna gram panchayat of the Sandeshkhali II block, and forms one of the seven segments under the Basirhat Lok Sabha seat.
Hingalganj, named after Tillman Henkel, the district magistrate of Jessore in 1781, who helped develop the settlement, has gone to the polls 14 times. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) held sway over the seat for nearly three decades with seven consecutive victories between 1977 and 2006. Its ally and parent party, the Communist Party of India, won twice in 1969 and 2011, an Independent candidate won the inaugural election in 1967, and the Trinamool Congress has demolished the Left bastion with back-to-back victories in the last two Assembly elections.
The CPI secured its second and overall ninth win for the Left in 2011, when its candidate Anandamoy Mondal defeated Debes Mondal of the Trinamool Congress by a narrow margin of 1,015 votes. The two faced each other again in 2016, but this time Debes Mondal prevailed and helped the Trinamool Congress open its account in Hingalganj with a victory margin of 30,304 votes. Debes Mondal retained the seat in 2021, defeating Nemai Das of the BJP by 24,916 votes. The once invincible Left Front suffered a dramatic collapse as the CPI was reduced to just 3.09 per cent of votes and forfeited its security deposit, a fall of 32.97 percentage points from the previous election, with almost the entire gain going to the BJP, whose vote share rose by a similar margin between 2011 and 2021.
Compared to the Assembly elections, where the Trinamool Congress had to wait till 2016 for its first win after two defeats in 2001 and 2006, it has performed strongly in Lok Sabha contests in the Hingalganj Assembly segment. It trailed the CPI by 1,774 votes in 2009 and went ahead in 2014 with a lead of 12,713 votes. From 2019, the BJP replaced the CPI as the main challenger to the Trinamool Congress, but Trinamool retained its hold with a lead of 22,227 votes in 2019 and 10,507 votes in 2024. The BJP’s vote share climbed from 8.35 per cent and 12.80 per cent in 2009 and 2014 to 40.50 per cent in 2019 and 43.32 per cent in 2024, while the CPI’s share fell from 43.99 per cent in 2009 and 37.21 per cent in 2014 to 3.31 per cent in 2019 and 3.84 per cent in 2024, confirming the Left Front’s near total marginalisation in Hingalganj.
Hingalganj lies in the Ichhamati-Raimangal plain, part of the lower Ganges delta and one of the three main physiographic regions of North 24 Parganas. The soil ranges from black or brownish loam to recent alluvium and supports rice, jute and other crops. The area is low-lying, cut by tidal rivers and creeks, and prone to flooding, saline water ingress and cyclones. The main rivers in and around the region include the Raimangal, Ichhamati, Kalindi, Roymongal and Gomor, which form a maze of waterways that sustain livelihoods, and at the same time, expose it to repeated natural disasters.
The economy of Hingalganj revolves around agriculture, fishing, crab collection and forest-based work linked to the Sundarbans, with most residents being small and marginal farmers or agricultural labourers. Formal industry is scarce and infrastructure modest, with many villages depending on boats and ferries for connectivity, though paved approach roads, markets, schools and health centres are present across the region. Limited power supply and frequent weather-related disruptions deepen the vulnerability of local livelihoods.
Hingalganj is situated roughly 27 km by road from Basirhat, the subdivision headquarters, and around 70 km from Barasat, the district headquarters of North 24 Parganas. Kolkata, the state capital, lies to the south west at an estimated distance of about 80 to 100 km by road. Residents typically access the Kolkata suburban rail network through nearby stations in the Basirhat and Hasnabad belt, from where trains run towards Sealdah, about 70 to 90 km away.
The constituency lies very close to the international border, with parts of the Hingalganj block only a few km from the river stretches that mark the line between India and Bangladesh. The Kalindi and Raimangal rivers act as the frontier here, separating Hingalganj and adjoining blocks from the Satkhira and Khulna regions in Bangladesh. Most Bangladeshi border villages in this zone fall within roughly 5 to 20 km across the waterways from the Indian side, with movement regulated by border outposts and river patrols.
Hingalganj had 234,365 registered voters in 2024, a gradual rise from 228,508 in 2021, 220,579 in 2019, 212,172 in 2016 and 185,015 in 2011. The Scheduled Castes form the largest bloc of voters at 55.92 per cent in this SC-reserved seat, the Scheduled Tribes account for 6.94 per cent, and Muslims make up 18.50 per cent of the electorate. It is an overwhelmingly rural constituency, with 94.63 per cent rural voters and only 5.37 per cent urban electorate. Voter turnout has stayed robust, at 85.97 per cent in 2011, 84.32 per cent in 2016, 83.08 per cent in 2019, 85.29 per cent in 2021 and 79.99 per cent in 2024.
The BJP’s rise in Hingalganj over the last decade has been both steady and exceptional, to the point where it has almost caught up with the Trinamool Congress in several recent contests. For once, the BJP has little reason to wish for a strong revival of the Left Front-Congress alliance, since it appears to have absorbed much of their traditional support among Scheduled Caste voters, though it would welcome a limited revival that creates some breach in the Muslim vote, which has tended to rally behind the Trinamool Congress. As things stand, the Trinamool Congress holds a notional edge over the BJP, but the margin is not insurmountable and, as the old saying goes, anything can happen in Hingalganj. The 2026 Assembly election here promises a close and fascinating contest.
(Ajay Jha)
