By-elections held on Tuesday, 6 October 2026, in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Assam recorded heavy polling, with turnout above 80 per cent in several seats. Votes will be counted on Friday, 9 October.
Turnout
- Maduranthakam (Tamil Nadu): 86.26%
- Nandigram (West Bengal): 80.89%
- Thattanchavady (Puducherry): 80.81%
- Dharapuram (Tamil Nadu): about 80.3%
Polling was also held in the Rejinagar assembly seat in West Bengal and for the Nagaon Lok Sabha seat in Assam. The figures are those reported by the news agency ANI at the close of polling; the Election Commission’s final figures may differ slightly.
Nandigram
The most closely watched contest is Nandigram in Purba Medinipur district. The seat fell vacant because Suvendu Adhikari, now Chief Minister of West Bengal, won both Nandigram and Bhabanipur in this year’s assembly election and chose to keep Bhabanipur.
The contest is mainly between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress. Adhikari voted in Nandigram on polling day and said he would remain a voter in the constituency, The Week reported.
Nandigram has a large place in Bengal’s politics. The agitation against land acquisition there in 2007 helped bring Mamata Banerjee to power, and in 2021 she lost the seat narrowly to Adhikari, her former lieutenant.
Rejinagar
The Rejinagar seat in Murshidabad district became vacant when Humayun Kabir, leader of the Aam Janata Unnayan Party, won two seats and kept Nowda. The by-election is a four-cornered contest between the BJP, the Trinamool Congress, Kabir’s party and the Congress. Kabir was detained by police for a time during polling, the Free Press Journal reported.
Tamil Nadu and Puducherry
The two Tamil Nadu seats are the first electoral test for the government of Chief Minister Vijay, whose party came to power in May.
What to watch
By-elections seldom change who governs, but they are read as early verdicts. Nandigram will show whether the BJP’s new government in Bengal has held its ground in the Chief Minister’s own former seat, and the Tamil Nadu results will be the first measure of the new government there.
Turnout figures are as reported by ANI. Other details are from The Week, the Free Press Journal and The Sunday Guardian.
Image: Women voters queue at a polling station in Birbhum district, West Bengal, during the 2011 assembly election (file photo). Photo by Election Commission of India, licensed under Government Open Data License – India, via Wikimedia Commons.
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