Kharagpur Sadar assembly election results 2026: BJP veteran Dilip Ghosh defeats TMC's Pradip Sarkar by 30,506 votes

Senior BJP leader Dilip Ghosh retained Kharagpur Sadar seat for the party, defeating Trinamool's Pradip Sarkar by 30,506 votes.According to the Election Commission, Ghosh and Sarkar polled 89,885 and 59,379 votes, respectively.Kharagpur Sadar in Paschim Medinipur district was previously represented by Hiranmoy Chattopadhyaya (popularly Hiran Chatterjee) of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly. In the 2021 election, he secured 79,607 votes, defeating Trinamool Congress candidate Pradip Sarkar, who got 75,836 votes; the victory margin was 3,771 votes, making it a closely contested seat. Key issues include employment for educated youth around the railway, engineering and service hubs, better connectivity between Kharagpur town and surrounding villages, and pressure on urban infrastructure—drainage, drinking water, and housing—in rapidly growing suburbs. There is also simmering concern over contract and outsourced jobs in the railways and allied sectors, local business slowdown, and demand for more government health and education facilities that match the presence of premier institutes like IIT Kharagpur nearby. Politically, Kharagpur Sadar has a strong Congress legacy through long‑time MLA Gyan Singh Sohanpal, but shifted to the BJP with Dilip Ghosh’s 2016 win and consolidated that trend again in 2021 under Hiranmoy Chattopadhyaya, making it one of the party’s key footholds in south Bengal. The seat falls under the Medinipur Lok Sabha constituency, now held by TMC’s June Malia after the 2024 general election, creating a BJP‑MLA/TMC‑MP split that shapes current political contestation on the ground.