West Bengal Elections 2026: All About Swapan Dasgupta, BJP's Rashbehari Candidate

The BJP has nominated former Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta as its candidate for Rashbehari seat in the upcoming 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections. Dasgupta is a former journalist, a veteran columnist and a Hindutva ideologue. 

Voting for the 294-member West Bengal Assembly is scheduled in two phases on April 23 and 29. The counting of votes will take place on May 4. 

Who Is Swapan Dasgupta? 

Born on October 3, 1955, in a Bengali upper caste family in Calcutta, Dasgupta completed his early education from St Paul's School, Darjeeling, and La Martiniere, Kolkata.  

He graduated from St. Stephen's College in 1975 and earned an MA and PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. 

In 1979, he came back to India and took up a management position in his family's pharmaceutical company, Calcutta Chemical Company. He then returned to the UK and taught South Asian politics as a junior research fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. 

Dasgupta has served in editorial positions across leading English media organisations, including The Indian Express, The Times of India, The Statesman and India Today. 

In 2015, he was honoured with the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian honour, for his contribution to literature and education. 

Dasgupta has also authored two books: Awakening Bharat Mata: The Political Beliefs of the Indian Right (2019) and The Ayodhya Reference: The Supreme Court Judgement and Commentaries (1995). 

Political Career 

Dasgupta was nominated to Rajya Sabha in 2016 by then President Pranab Mukherjee. In 2021, the columnist resigned after Mamata Banerjee-led TMC referred to constitutional rules to highlight that he would be disqualified if he joined a political party. His term in the Rajya Sabha was to end in April 2022. 

During the 2021 Assembly elections in West Bengal, Dasgupta unsuccessfully contested from the rural Tarakeswar seat. At the time, he lost by a little over 7,000 votes to his nearest Trinamool rival, Ramendu Sinharay. 

Dasgupta's seat in the 2-26 Bengal polls, Rashbehari, has remained a stronghold of the ruling Trinamool over the past three decades.