Amit Shah to Chair BJP MLA Meeting in Kolkata to Finalise West Bengal Chief Minister

New Delhi, May 2026 : Amit Shah will arrive in Kolkata on Friday to chair a crucial meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s newly elected legislators as the party moves closer to forming its first government in West Bengal.

The BJP legislature party meeting is expected to play a decisive role in selecting the leader of the house, effectively finalising the party’s chief ministerial candidate. Senior BJP central leadership is closely supervising the process as the party prepares for a major political transition in the state following its landmark electoral performance.

The development comes at a politically significant moment after the formal tenure of the previous West Bengal government officially ended on Thursday. Governor C. V. Ananda Bose issued a notification dissolving the 17th West Bengal Legislative Assembly, formally bringing the Assembly’s term to a close from May 7.

Despite the dissolution of the Assembly, outgoing Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has continued to describe herself as the “Chief Minister of West Bengal” on her official social media accounts, including Facebook, Instagram, and X.

The recently concluded Assembly election has attracted widespread attention because of dramatic constituency-level shifts and the BJP’s unprecedented gains across the state. The party not only retained all 77 seats it had won in the 2021 Assembly elections but also added 130 new seats, significantly expanding its political footprint in West Bengal.

According to election data, the BJP secured victories in 95 constituencies where the number of deleted names from electoral rolls exceeded the eventual winning margins. Of these, 80 seats were constituencies that the BJP had not previously held.

One of the most high-profile contests took place in Bhabanipur, the south Kolkata constituency represented by Mamata Banerjee. BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari defeated Banerjee by a margin of 15,105 votes. Reports indicated that approximately 45,240 names had been deleted from the voter rolls in the constituency, nearly three times the victory margin.

In Tollyganj, senior minister Aroop Biswas lost by 6,013 votes, while more than 33,000 voter deletions were reportedly recorded. Jadavpur, once considered a Left stronghold, witnessed a BJP victory margin of 27,716 votes alongside nearly 45,892 deletions from the electoral rolls.

Meanwhile, in Indus constituency, the BJP retained the seat by a narrow margin of just 900 votes, with reports indicating that 4,617 voter names had been removed from the rolls.

The political developments have intensified discussions over electoral shifts, voter roll revisions, and the broader transformation of West Bengal’s political landscape.

With the Legislative Assembly now formally dissolved and preparations underway for the swearing-in of a new government, political attention has shifted to Friday’s BJP legislature party meeting in Kolkata. The meeting is expected to formally pave the way for the announcement of West Bengal’s next Chief Minister and mark the beginning of a new political chapter in the state.