Dantan assembly election results 2026: BJP's Ajit Kumar Jana wins Trinamool-held seat by 10,376 votes

NEW DELHI: In Dantan assembly constituency, BJP's Ajit Kumar Jana defeated Trinamool candidate Manik Maiti to wrest the seat held by the Mamata Banerjee-led party.Jana (110,259) polled 10,376 more votes than Maiti (99,883), Election Commission's website showed.Dantan, in Paschim Medinipur district, was previously represented by Bikram Chandra Pradhan of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) in the West Bengal legislative assembly. Pradhan won the 2021 election with 95,209 votes, narrowly defeating BJP’s Shaktipada Nayak, who secured 94,586 votes, by a razor‑thin margin of 623 votes (48.13% vs 47.82% vote share). Key issues in this rural constituency, spanning Dantan‑I and Dantan‑II blocks, revolve around irrigation support for paddy and betel leaf cultivation, better rural roads connecting villages to markets, and drainage to combat waterlogging. Access to government health facilities, schools and drinking water infrastructure, alongside demands for regulated farm inputs and fair prices for small farmers, are persistent local concerns. Dantan was a CPI stronghold for decades under leaders like Kanai Bhowmik and Nanda Gopal Bhattacharjee, before TMC’s Bikram Chandra Pradhan broke through in 2016 and defended it in 2021’s nail‑biter, marking the seat’s shift in south Bengal’s political landscape. It falls under the Medinipur Lok Sabha constituency, now held by TMC MP June Malia, who won the 2024 general election by 27,191 votes, aligning Assembly and parliamentary control.