Kandagosh assembly polls 2026: Nabin Chandra Bag of TMC wings against Goutam Dhara of BJP

Nabin Chandra Bag of the All India Trinamool Congress won the Khandaghosh (SC) Assembly constituency No. 260, defeating Goutam Dhara of the Bharatiya Janata Party.Khandaghosh (SC), Assembly constituency number 260, is located in the southwestern part of Bardhaman district (Purba Bardhaman) in South Bengal, bordering Bankura and stretching along the Damodar valley. The key candidates in the fray also included Anup Kumar Saha from the Indian National Congress.Covering Khandaghosh community development block and its villages, the constituency features alluvial soil transitioning to laterite, with paddy as the dominant crop and coal-belt economic overspill from the Asansol-Durgapur corridor. With over 234,000 electors, the SC-reserved constituency has Bagdi and Bauri communities alongside OBC groups in a mixed agrarian and semi-industrial economy.Key voter concerns include agricultural support pricing, irrigation, coal-belt employment proximity, welfare scheme delivery, drinking water, and healthcare. A historically Left-influenced area owing to coal-belt trade union presence, now a bipolar TMC-BJP contest. Very high turnout (91.9per cent) under Bardhaman-Durgapur Lok Sabha. In 2021, TMC's Nabin Chandra Bag won comfortably by 20,886 votes (~9.7per cent of 215,953 total votes), one of the stronger TMC margins in the district cluster.A safely marginal TMC seat; the comfortable margin reflects TMC's successful SC community consolidation and coal-belt industrial worker support. Khandaghosh is a strategic TMC anchor at the southwestern entry of Barddhaman district, balancing BJP's industrial-belt strongholds.