The BJP has taken control of the Sonamukhi Panchayat Samiti in Bankura after its members won the vacant posts of president and vice-president in an election held on Wednesday, ending a months-long administrative deadlock in the local body.
BJP member Kuntal Konar was elected president, while party member Mamata Ankure became vice-president. The election was scheduled by the Bishnupur subdivision administration after the previous president, Kushal Bandyopadhyay, and vice-president, Antara Bagdi, resigned following a change in the West Bengal government after the 2026 Assembly election.
The change gives the BJP control of Bankura’s first panchayat samiti, according to the report. The outcome is a reversal of the numerical position established in the 2023 panchayat elections, when the Trinamool Congress won 20 of the 28 seats and the BJP won eight. The Trinamool Congress had consequently formed the board with a majority.
The leadership change followed a period in which several Trinamool Congress-run gram panchayats under the Sonamukhi panchayat samiti reportedly came under the BJP after the change in the state government. The posts of president and vice-president, however, remained vacant for several months, leaving the panchayat samiti without its elected leadership until Wednesday’s vote.
After the election, Konar and Ankure were seen sprinkling Ganga water on their chairs before taking their seats and later celebrating with party workers. The ritual was described in the report as a form of ‘purification’ of the panchayat samiti premises.
Konar said he was from a farming family and would work with all panchayat samiti members for the overall development of the area. He also criticised the previous president’s connection with Sonamukhi town, saying that a representative from a rural background would better understand villagers’ difficulties. These were political statements made after the election and were not independently established in the report.
Sonamukhi MLA and West Bengal minister of state for forests, environment and cooperation, Dibakar Gharami, said the resignations of the previous office-bearers had created administrative difficulties. He described the new board as a transparent and corruption-free panchayat samiti, a characterisation attributed to the minister rather than an independently verified finding.
The development illustrates how changes in elected local-body control can follow shifts in state-level political power, even when the original seat distribution in a panchayat samiti remains unchanged. In this case, the reported transition involved leadership resignations, subsequent changes in several gram panchayats and a formal election conducted by the subdivision administration.
The Trinamool Congress’s Bishnupur organisational district joint convener, Sukhen Bid, was contacted for a response but did not answer repeated calls or respond to messages, according to the report. The immediate administrative priorities for the newly elected board were not specified in the supplied account.
