Actress Papiya Adhikari wins Tollygunge seat for BJP in 2026 Bengal polls

Papiya Adhikari, a veteran Bengali film and television actress, won the Tollygunge seat in the 2026 West Bengal Assembly election, standing for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It was her first win in the state legislature.

Her opponent was Aroop Biswas of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), the party that had governed Bengal for years. Biswas was a senior party figure and a former state minister. He had resigned from his ministerial post after the chaotic Kolkata visit of footballer Lionel Messi. Early counting trends went back and forth, but Adhikari pulled ahead and won by roughly 6,000 votes, according to Indian media reports. Exact margins differed slightly between outlets.

The result mattered because Tollygunge, a Kolkata constituency home to the Bengali film industry, had long been a TMC stronghold. Her win formed part of a wider BJP surge in the state in 2026. It also placed a newcomer from the entertainment world in the Assembly, where her later public remarks have drawn attention.