The poll discourse in Bengal points to a dilemma among Muslims, who have traditionally supported the Trinamool Congress but many of whom are now questioning the state government’s commitment to their real uplift and are willing to consider other options.

“Why will we vote for Trinamool? What has the party done for Muslims? Where are the jobs? Is the dole enough for our livelihood?” Dildar Sheikh, 45, chimed in as this reporter was speaking to three women sitting in the courtyard of a mud house at Sheikh Para village in Murshidabad’s Bhagabangola.

Sheikh Para is 226 km from Kolkata. The streets were almost deserted, barring a few women busy rolling bidis under the searing summer sun.

Mamtaz Biwi, who had been lauding chief minister Mamata Banerjee for her Lakshmir Bhandar scheme, seemed thrown off by Dildar’s questions. As he continued to vent his disenchantment with Trinamool’s stance on the Waqf Amendment Act and Mamata’s “failure” to address the issue of OBC quota for Muslims, 66-year-old Sheikh Akhtar Hossain weighed in.

“Who will you vote for then? Please don’t say the BJP,” Hossain said. He, however, acknowledged that this election was unlike any other, as lakhs of names had been deleted from the voter rolls.

“Listen, we have to be united in this election. If you split your votes, the BJP will win, and we all know what they will do to us,” Hossain said, setting off a fierce debate with Dildar.

This dichotomy is prevalent in every corner of the two Muslim-dominated districts of Murshidabad and Malda. The two districts gave Trinamool its highest number of seats in the 2021 Assembly elections — 20 out of 22 in Murshidabad and 8 out of 12 in Malda.

Trinamool insiders said Muslim consolidation in favour of the party peaked in Malda, a Congress bastion, in 2021. Now, shifting loyalties have left many in the party wondering whether Muslims would vote in bulk for the Trinamool or warm up to the CPM or the Congress.

The Waqf Amendment Act is being seen as the single-largest contributor to the growing anti-incumbency among Muslims in the two districts. The 2024 general election offered a peek into Trinamool’s shaky grip on its Muslim vote bank as the party trailed in all 12 Assembly segments in Malda.

In Murshidabad, the party led from only 14 Assembly segments in 2024, down from the 20 it won in 2021. A 65-year-old businessman from Nabagram, Murshidabad, said Muslims were disappointed with Mamata for failing to keep her promise to prevent the implementation of the Waqf Amendment Act in Bengal.

“Why did she say that the Bengal government would not allow the Waqf Amendment Act? Was it a ploy to consolidate Muslim votes as she did in 2021? If so, it is not going to be a cakewalk this time,” he said.

Mausam Noor, who recently resigned as a Trinamool Rajya Sabha member and returned to the Congress, also claimed that Muslims in Malda had been leaning towards the Grand Old Party.

“The situation has changed since 2021. There was panic over the NRC, which the Trinamool successfully milked and secured a major chunk of minority votes. But Muslims have realised that Trinamool did not deliver development for them. From the Waqf Act to OBC reservations, the party has failed to protect the rights of Muslims. This time, a large number of Muslims will look for alternatives and in Malda, it is certainly the Congress,” Noor said at his office in Kotwali, Malda.

However, Trinamool leaders believe the aggressive SIR drive would help steer Muslim voters towards the party that alone can fend off the BJP.

“The BJP and the Election Commission tried to disenfranchise many voters, particularly from the minority community. Didi approached the Supreme Court for redress,” said Abdur Rahim Boxi, Trinamool’s Malda president.

According to him, over 55 per cent of the minority voters deleted from the poll rolls had already been reinstated. Out of the over 60 lakh voters pending adjudication, nearly 20 lakh were from Malda and Murshidabad.

“Had Didi not intervened, all these people would have lost their right to vote. So this time, Muslims will support us without splitting their votes,” Boxi said, claiming that the party would win all the 12 seats in Malda.

CPM’s Murshidabad district secretary Zamir Molla believes his party played a more active role in righting the SIR wrongs, as he accused Trinamool of only politicising the issue.

Murshidabad resident Mostari Banu, 45, a leader of the CPM’s women wing AIDWA, was the first to file a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the SIR in Bengal.

“Not only the BJP, the people are also annoyed with Trinamool over the SIR. The state administration, which executed the task, failed to address the real issues of minority voters. So it will not be easy for them to consolidate Muslim votes on this issue,” Molla said.

In Malda’s Mothabari, where seven judicial officers were held hostage on April 1 over the deletion of names, Trinamool nominee Nazrul Islam got a taste of the resentment that had been building against his party.

In Mothabari, around 79,000 voters were placed in the under-adjudication category, and Islam was the only one from his booth to make it to the supplementary list. When Islam, also the party’s minority cell chief in Malda, went to pacify the protesters on April 1, he was abused and chased away.

The protesters asked why over 500 electors from his booth were under adjudication while he and a few of his supporters were cleared as valid voters.

However, a section of voters in Malda and Murshidabad believes that Trinamool might benefit from the Congress and the Left contesting separately in all constituencies.

“The Muslim votes that would not go to Trinamool may get split between the two parties. It would have been better if the CPM and the Congress had entered into an alliance like in 2024,” said a CPM leader.

Haqdar Sheikh, a mason from Siyalmara village in Murshidabad’s Nabagram Assembly constituency, summed up the broad mood on the ground:

“We are not happy with Trinamool. Mamata Banerjee built the Jagannath Temple (in Digha), we have no problem with that. But why did she suspend Humayun Kabir when he announced the construction of a Babri mosque (in Murshidabad)?”

“We will not vote for the BJP. If we vote for the CPM or the Congress, they will not be able to form the government. Despite our anger, many of us have to vote for Trinamool,” the 56-year-old said.

Additional reporting by Alamgir Hossain and Soumya De Sarkar.