Minakshi Mukherjee

Minakshi was born in Kulti, West Bengal.^[1] She completed schooling at Jaladhi Kumari Devi Uchcha Balika Vidyalaya in Kulti.^[8] Her graduation was from Banwarilal Bhalotia College in Asansol and she later completed a master's degree in political science from Burdwan University.^[4][9][10]

Minakshi Mukherjee started her activism through Students' Federation of India in her college days.^[11][12] She was later inducted into the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) local committee in 2008.^[4][9] Her leadership and public speaking skills helped her rise within DYFI, and by 2018, she became the state president of DYFI in West Bengal.^[10][4][13] In the same year, she also joined the state committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in West Bengal.^[4]

In the 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly Election, she contested as the CPI(M) candidate in the high-profile constituency Nandigram,^[14] against the Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee (the West Bengal Chief Minister) and the BJP candidate Suvendu Adhikari.^[15][16][17] Minakshi represented the Left-Congress-ISF alliance (Sanjukta Morcha) in Vidhan Sabha election.^[18][17][19]

On 11 February 2021, she participated in the 2021 Nabanna Abhijan from College Street to protest for jobs that was intended to present a list of demands to chief minister Mamata Banerjee at Nabanna, which ended with conflicting claims of how many protesters were hospitalized after the police responded, and prompted a 12-hour strike by the Left Front against police brutality.^[20] The injuries of the Nabanna protestors became a political issue in the upcoming election, and Mukherjee continued to emphasize the need for jobs in her campaign.^[21][22] However, she did not win the election.^{[citation needed]}

On 5 October 2021, she became the first woman to serve as the state secretary of the Democratic Youth Federation of India.^[2]

In 2022, Mukherjee was prominent in the protest against the death of Anish Khan and briefly incarcerated.^[1] In 2024, she participated in the Left Front Grand Brigade Rally in Kolkata.^[1]