Haunted by RG Kar incident, West Bengal’s Panihati turns battleground as victim’s mother confronts TMC citadel
In Panihati, a constituency that has changed hands only between the Left and the Congress and later the TMC for nearly six decades, the April 29 contest is no longer an ordinary election.
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In this northern Kolkata suburb, now considered a safe TMC hub, voters are being asked less about local grievances and more about a question that has haunted Bengal since August 2024: “Who failed the RG Kar victim and who can still deliver justice?”
With the BJP taking on the victim doctor’s mother, the TMC defending a fortress three decades in the making and the CPI(M) trying to roll back a protest movement it helped lead, Panihati has become the constituency where Bengal’s most emotionally charged issue has come to its harshest political test.
The BJP has fielded Ratna Debnath, mother of the victim doctor, against Tirthankar Ghosh, son of senior TMC leader and outgoing MLA Nirmal Ghosh.
What’s at stake in Panihati is no longer just a seat in parliament. This is an attempt by rival parties to own the anger, pain and unanswered questions surrounding Bengal’s biggest protest movement in recent years and the RG Kar case. For the BJP, candidacy is an attempt to convert the anger and distrust created by the RG Kar movement into an anti-TMC vote.
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For the ruling TMC, which has held the seat through chief whip Nirmal Ghosh since 2011, this is a test of whether a solid organizational fortress can withstand the tide of public anger.
For the CPI(M), whose cadres and student wings are among the most visible faces of the protests, Panihati also offers a chance to roll back a movement that it believes the BJP is now trying to appropriate.
Debnath said, “If I can serve the people, my daughter will also be happy. I want the lotus flower to bloom in West Bengal and TMC to be uprooted.” he said.
His foray into politics comes almost a year and a half after the August 9, 2024, crime that triggered perhaps the largest civil society movement in Bengal since the Singur and Nandigram anti-land acquisition agitations.
The rape and murder of a graduate intern doctor at her workplace brought doctors, students and ordinary residents to the streets.
Hospitals went on strike. Protesters occupied roads throughout the night. Demonstrations spread from Kolkata to Delhi, turning the case into a national flashpoint over women’s safety and allegations of destruction of evidence.
But in Bengal the movement gained a sharper political edge. The protests soon became more than just a demand for justice for one victim. These have become a broader indictment of the Mamata Banerjee government’s handling of law and order, hospital management and suspected protection of powerful people.
This mood now hangs heavily over Panihati.
The victim’s father told PTI that the family had come to the conclusion that only political change could bring justice.
“Only the BJP can provide justice for my daughter and ensure the safety and security of women in the state. We have said all along that we will not allow politics to be done over the death of our child. So, what did the Left do other than protest?” he said.
The Left fielded Kalatan Dasgupta, one of the recognizable faces of the protests.
“Anyone can enter politics. We have no problem with it. If such an incident happens again, we will block the roads again, occupy the night, and protest. No one can stop us from entering the path of protest. We will see this fight for justice until the end,” he said.
Panihati was once a stronghold of the Left. Since the seat came into existence in 1967, the CPI has held the seat many times but was interrupted by the Congress only twice.
Nirmal Ghosh won Panihati as a Congress candidate in 1996 before switching to TMC. Since then, it has dominated the constituency, winning elections in 2001, 2011, 2016 and 2021, except 2006.
This time, Ghosh stepped aside and the TMC fielded its son. However, this succession also gave the opposition a strong political line.
Debnath accused Nirmal Ghosh of being involved in the alleged “destruction of evidence” in the RG Kar case.
Tirthankar Ghosh gave a cautious response, saying the TMC shared the family’s pain while accusing the BJP of taking political advantage of a tragedy.
The arithmetic seems to favor the ruling party.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, TMC emerged as the leader in the segment with nearly 49.6 per cent of the votes against the BJP’s 34.6 per cent. Even in the 2021 assembly polls, TMC won comfortably with over 41 per cent votes despite the rise of the BJP across Bengal.
Panihati has 1,97,141 voters in the 2026 electoral rolls after SIR. Scheduled Castes make up just over 5 percent of the electorate, while Muslims make up less than 5 percent, making the seat overwhelmingly Hindu and dominated by lower-middle-class and middle-class suburban voters.
Once a thriving center of the rice trade and later of mills and small factories, Panihati today bears the scars of suburban decline: crumbling roads, dwindling job opportunities and corruption.
RG The snow issue combined with this resentment. In tea stalls and market corners, the same question is repeated: “If a doctor can be raped and murdered in a hospital and his parents still have to fight for justice, what does it say about the state?”
