In the West Bengal Assembly Elections of 2026, Dr. Pranat Tudu of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) achieved a decisive victory in Binpur (Assembly Constituency 237), defeating Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidate Birbaha Hansda by a margin of 22,977 votes. Tudu garnered a total of 107,238 votes after the completion of all 22 rounds of counting, while Hansda received 84,261 votes.
Binpur (ST), positioned as Assembly Constituency No. 237, is located in the Jhargram sub-division of Paschim Medinipur district, situated in South Bengal’s Jangalmahal region, which borders Jharkhand to the west and Odisha to the south. The constituency includes the Binpur I and II community development blocks and encompasses densely forested, hilly terrain characterized by sal forests and the Subarnarekha river basin, along with various scattered tribal settlements. With approximately 216,000 eligible voters, the constituency’s population predominantly consists of Santhal, Munda, Ho, and other Scheduled Tribe communities engaged in a subsistence agrarian and forest-based economy.
Voter concerns in this region typically revolve around land rights as defined by the Forest Rights Act, the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), access to drinking water, tribal welfare schemes, road connectivity in remote forest areas, and the resolution of issues stemming from the Jangalmahal conflict period. Historically, Binpur has been a key constituency sensitive to Jangalmahal dynamics, which was previously marked by Maoist disturbances but has since stabilized under TMC governance.
The election saw a high voter turnout of 85.6 percent, showcasing a deeply polarized contest among the TMC, BJP, and Left parties. In the previous election of 2021, TMC’s Debnath Hansda won by a significant margin of 39,494 votes, representing approximately a 21.3 percent lead from a total of 185,493 votes cast. This large margin had established Binpur as a secure seat for TMC, recognized as their most decisive victory in the Jangalmahal belt, and served as an indicator of tribal support for TMC in the Jhargram Lok Sabha constituency.
