Sundarbans: Where climate, migration and muscle shape the vote

Along narrow village roads flanked by farmland and mangrove groves, rickshaw-vans crawl forward with loudspeakers blaring campaign slogans. In the distance, a river winds through the greenery, a reminder that in the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, land and water are in constant negotiation.

On this day, politics and faith intersect. Women in bright saris, their feet marked with alta, walk barefoot toward a Shiva temple in Mandir Bazar, accompanied by young men carrying baanks — poles with water pots for ritual offerings. The religious observance of Nil Shasti coincides with a day of election rallies ahead of West Bengal’s Assembly polls.

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“Sunderbans has traditionally supported the Left and later the Trinamul Congress, but this time the fight is tighter, with visible BJP and RSS presence,” said Ganesh Naskar, a local trader. Party flags, saffron, green and red line the roads, signalling a competitive three-cornered contest.

Though often imagined as the domain of the Royal Bengal tiger, the Sundarbans is densely populated, with close to 1,000 people per square kilometre. Its social composition is finely balanced: roughly a third Scheduled Castes, a third Muslims and the rest largely upper-caste Hindus, with small tribal and Christian communities.

At Mandir Bazar, a Left Front rally draws large crowds. Its star speaker is Nawsad Siddique, a cleric-politician better known as “Bhaijaan,” whose Indian Secular Front has aligned with the Left. Though not ideologically Left, Siddique has emerged as a mobilising force among Muslim voters.

Addressing a swelling crowd, he focused on a contentious issue: the ongoing electoral roll revision. “We will help all those whose names have been left out,” he said, adding that assistance would extend even to supporters of rival parties.

In South 24-Parganas district, where the Sundarbans lies, around 2,20,000 names have reportedly been struck off the voter rolls after revisions. Many affected are seasonal migrants ~ workers forced to leave as rising seas and repeated cyclones erode farmland and livelihoods.

The Left, which failed to win any seats here in the last Assembly election, hopes to regain some ground. But the principal contest remains between the ruling Trinamul Congress (TMC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). A modest Left revival could still influence outcomes by cutting into anti-incumbency votes.

One of the architects of the Left’s attempted comeback is Kanti Ganguly, a former minister respected for his work in the region, including relief efforts after Cyclone Amphan. Now in his eighties, he is not contesting but campaigning for candidates including his son, Sammo Ganguly.

“It’s an uphill task in a polarised election,” he said, seated outside his modest home. “But we hope to regain some of our old support base.”

Nearby, at the Keshabeshwar Shiva temple in Ramnathpur, loudspeakers guide devotees as they queue with offerings. The symbolism is not lost. Shiva, associated with destruction and regeneration, mirrors the cycles of devastation and recovery that define life here.

In the past decade, cyclones have repeatedly battered the Sundarbans. Each storm pushes saline water further inland, rendering fields infertile. “Farmland is being lost every year,” said Sammo Ganguly, CPI-M candidate from Raidighi. “We need embankments and salt-resistant crops.”

As agriculture declines, migration has surged. Estimates suggest more than a million people from the region now work seasonally in distant states such as Andhra Pradesh and Delhi. Their absence has political consequences: many find their names missing from voter lists, effectively disenfranchising them.

Purnima Mondol, a migrant worker, managed to return from Gurgaon in time to restore her name. “Others were not so lucky,” she said.

Economic distress has also left communities vulnerable to exploitation. In the island clusters of Sandeshkhali, Bhangatushkhali and Baro Tushkhali, allegations of land grabbing and coercion have shaped recent politics.

A couple of years ago, residents rose up against local strongmen accused of dominating the fish trade and appropriating land for shrimp farming. According to locals, these figures operated across political regimes, first aligned with the Left, later with the TMC, wielding influence through a mix of patronage and intimidation.

The unrest erupted into public view ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections, when villagers spoke out against what they described as a “mafia-like” grip. The accused fled, and law enforcement agencies launched belated crackdowns.

The BJP quickly seized on the issue, projecting it as evidence of governance failure. Rekha Patra, a survivor of alleged violence, has now been fielded by the party in the Assembly polls.

She faces TMC candidate Jharna Sardar, who says her party has worked to address local grievances. “The women who led the protests are now with us,” she said.

Despite the high-decibel campaigning, many voters here frame their choices in practical terms.

“People will vote on local issues,” said Bishnu Malo, a fisherman from Gosaba. “Water, land erosion, and the influence of musclemen, these matter as much as the bigger political battles.”

In the Sundarbans, where geography itself is unstable, politics is shaped as much by tides and tempests as by ideology.