A NOTAble warning for Congress in West Bengal

If NOTA, or None of the Above, is meant to be a protest button, Bengal’s 2026 assembly election showed a mellowing of that protest. But the same data also flashed a sharper warning, not for TMC or the Left, but for Congress.

Across the comparable 293-seat base (Falta is yet to vote), NOTA votes dropped from 6.53 lakh in 2021 to 4.95 lakh in 2026. That is a fall of 1.58 lakh votes, or 24.24%. This was not because fewer people voted. Total votes polled in these same seats rose from about 6.01 crore to 6.38 crore. Yet fewer voters chose NOTA. Its vote share slipped from 1.09% to 0.78%.

In 2021, NOTA ranked fourth in 195 seats. In 2026, it ranked fourth in only 80. It moved down the candidate order, more often finishing fifth, sixth or lower. By itself, this should have been a story of NOTA losing visibility. However, the data also serves as a proxy for Congress's performance. NOTA exceeded Congress in 92 seats, RSP in 3, and AIFB and CPI(M) in 2 each. NOTA’s median vote in 2026 was only about 1,569. That is not high. But Congress’s median was only 1,924, and in 156 of its 292 contests, Congress polled fewer than 2,000 votes.

The contrast with other parties explains why the number looks so stark. BJP’s lowest vote count was 13,180. TMC’s lowest was 38,876. NOTA was never going to cross them.

The 2021 contrast makes Congress’s collapse clearer. That year, Congress contested far fewer seats because of its seat-sharing arrangement with the Left. In the comparable base, it contested 91 seats, and NOTA outpolled Congress in only Kalimpong. Congress’s median vote in those seats was about 16,770. In 2026, Congress contested almost everywhere, but its median vote fell to about 1,924.

That is the shift, from a limited contest with a vote floor to a near-universal contest without one.

Late to the battlefield

There is an argument that sometimes elections are about rebuilding the organisation without leaning on another party’s vote bank as a crutch. But even by that standard, Congress looked underprepared. It was late in announcing candidates, putting out its first substantial list around 10-12 days after the other major parties. In an election already facing a binary, that was a major slip. Candidates need time to become visible, revive local networks, energise cadres.

The result was abysmal in several constituencies. In Kultali, Congress got 331 votes, or 0.13%. In Bhatpara, it got 439. In Nandigram, the seat that became Bengal’s political theatre in 2021, Congress polled 794.The district picture says the same thing. In Purba Medinipur, Congress’s aggregate vote share was 0.52%. In Jhargram, it was 0.70%. In both South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas, despite Congress contesting many seats, its aggregate share was only 0.73%.

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An erratic footprint

Congress did win two seats, the same as the Left alliance including ISF. But that surface parity hides a deeper difference. Congress’s presence was extremely limited in most places, unlike the Left, which retained a more regular footprint where it contested. Among the major parties, Congress had the highest coefficient of variation in votes at 2.02. TMC had the lowest at 0.22, followed by BJP at 0.29 and CPI(M) at 0.82. Simply put, TMC had the most even vote spread across constituencies; Congress had the most erratic one.

This matters beyond the arithmetic.

The unity dillema

After the results, Rahul Gandhi’s first instinct was not to celebrate TMC’s defeat. He warned party members “gloating” over Trinamool’s loss and framed Assam and Bengal as part of a larger democratic crisis. Rohan Mitra, Congress candidate from Ballygunge, replied with the line of a disciplined but bruised party worker, “Sir, they abused you, they abused us, they called us more names than anyone else. Anyways, your order is ours to follow.”

Then came Mamata Banerjee’s own post-result call.

On the day Suvendu Adhikari took oath as Bengal’s BJP chief minister, Mamata asked non-BJP parties, including the Left and ultra-Left, to build a joint platform against BJP. She said she was personally willing to talk to any party interested in such an initiative and described BJP as the “first enemy”. Veteran Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury criticised Mamata for her past actions and said that she should first declare Rahul Gandhi the leader of the INDIA alliance before any further consideration.

That is the Congress dilemma in Bengal. Local leaders appear more inclined to rebuild the organisation from scratch. Mamata’s overtures, however, may mean Congress is drawn into some future electoral understanding, giving it a higher floor than it had in 2026. But whether such an arrangement would allow Congress to expand beyond its traditional pockets in Dinajpur, Malda and Murshidabad, or merely survive as a junior partner, will remain the real subtext of any future alliance.

Where NOTA still mattered

Beyond Congress’s humiliation, NOTA itself made only a limited dent in this election. The highest average NOTA share in any district was only about 1.22%, seen in Jhargram, Kalimpong and Paschim Bardhaman.In five seats, Rajarhat New Town, Satgachhia, Jangipara, Indas and Raina, NOTA votes exceeded the victory margin. In all five, BJP beat TMC.

In large parts of Bengal, Congress is no longer even the default protest choice.If Bengal’s NOTA vote carried a protest, it was quieter than in 2021. If it carried a warning, it was loudest for Congress.