Legislative Assembly elections were held in 2016 for 294 seats of the Vidhan Sabha in the Indian state of West Bengal.

In the previous election in 2011, the All India Trinamool Congress in a coalition with INC won a majority and ended the 34-year rule of the Left Front government.

In the previous assembly election in 2011, the All India Trinamool Congress, under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee, won a majority and ended the 34-year rule of the Left Front government.

[5] As per updated voter list for the year 2016 published by the Election Commission of India in January 2016, West Bengal has surpassed the rest of the country in elector-population ratio with 0.68.

[8][9][10] The Saradha Group financial scandal, the Narada Sting operation (which showcased the prominent ministers & MPs of the ruling party of accepting bribes), lack of any major industrial investments, and law & order issue surfaced as major issues and proved to be an acid test for Trinamool Congress.

[11] On 4 March 2016, Election Commission of India announced that 22 assembly constituencies in West Bengal would have Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines attached along with EVMs.

After much dispute and secession of 2 far-left groups : SUCI(C) and CPI(ML)L from the Left Front, both Congress and Communists formed an understanding basis of what they called "seat-sharing", strongly objecting to the use of the word-"alliance".

The CPI(M) (which had famously refused the Congress' proposal of making veteran Communist leader and one of its founders Jyoti Basu the country's prime minister in 1990, 1991 & 1996 in order to not to been seen deviating from the cause of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat) was similarly accused of compromising with its ideological stance & indulging in hypocrisy by the TMC & BJP for entering into seat-sharing agreement with the Congress.

But after the announcement, the candidate from Kalimpong and former Gorkha Janmukti Morcha leader, Harka Bahadur Chettri, stated that he will fight as an Independent candidate under the entity of his newly formed political party, Jana Andolan Party, and will be supported by the Trinamool Congress.