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Kolkata: Sabina Yasmin does not start with politics. Over the phone from Nadia’s Kaliganj, she begins the chat with her daughter. 

“I am a mother first. Everyone calls me ‘Tamannar ma’ (Tamanna’s mother) I don’t know how to fight a political battle. I am fighting for my daughter and to ensure that no mother faces the same fate as I do, ever,” she says. 

Last year, Sabina’s nine-year-old daughter Tamanna was killed after Trinamool Congress supporters allegedly targeted the homes of supporters of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Molandi village following a by-poll victory. Now Yasmin is contesting as a CPI(M) candidate. Her daughter’s killers have not been brought to justice. “I cry every day. But my daughter gives me the strength,” Sabina says.

Her story captures the central truth of West Bengal’s electoral violence. A day ago, a Congress worker, Debdeep Chatterjee, died in Asansol in an attack allegedly perpetrated by TMC workers, in a headline quite familiar during election in Bengal. Again and again, the dead are not ministers or district strongmen, but migrant workers, local cadre, daily wage earners and families with no money for prolonged legal battles. They are the poor. 

I strongly condemn the brutal and shocking murder of our Congress worker, Late Debdeep Chatterjee, in Asansol. This heinous act marks a dark and dangerous moment for democracy in West Bengal. Whilst the Election Commission of India claims that these elections are “free and… pic.twitter.com/U0NBt0TayG — Subhankar Sarkar শুভঙ্কর সরকার (@subhankar_cong) April 26, 2026

I strongly condemn the brutal and shocking murder of our Congress worker, Late Debdeep Chatterjee, in Asansol. This heinous act marks a dark and dangerous moment for democracy in West Bengal.

Whilst the Election Commission of India claims that these elections are “free and… pic.twitter.com/U0NBt0TayG

— Subhankar Sarkar শুভঙ্কর সরকার (@subhankar_cong) April 26, 2026

Political power in West Bengal has long remained concentrated in the hands of middle-class, upper-caste Hindu leaders. Although rural marginalised communities and women gained representation, especially in local government bodies, real authority continued to rest with local elites such as schoolteachers, businessmen and........

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