NEW DELHI: The results of the five state Assembly elections have delivered more than just a verdict for parties, especially the BJP, which pulled off an emphatic victory to end the 15-year rule of the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal.
For the BJP, the victory is more than electoral arithmetic, as it has conquered the last major eastern bastion that had resisted its expansion for over a decade. Banerjee lost her Bhabanipur seat to Suvendu Adhikari by a margin of 15,000 votes in the saffron wave and the BJP made inroads into TMC strongholds, suggesting a deeper realignment rather than a transient swing. The setback for the TMC is expected to blunt its ability to assert primacy within the INDIA bloc, potentially recalibrating internal equations in favour of the Congress.
The BJP appears to have rebounded after the setback in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, when its tally dropped from over 300 seats in 2019 to 240.
The BJP’s winning streak continued with victories in Assam and Puducherry, where it retained power riding on pro-incumbency sentiment, and West Bengal where its campaign centred on nationalism, development, and violence-free society. The impressive Bengal win will help the BJP enter the next cycle of elections with aplomb. In 2027, the key states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh will go to polls.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu delivered another surprise with debutant TVK, led by actor-politician Vijay, emerging the single-largest party. While TVK’s victory is seen as a verdict in favour of change, the defeat of incumbent chief minister M K Stalin came as a shocker. The AIADMK was pushed to a distant third spot. While TVK has fallen short of the majority mark of 118 seats, it is learnt the party is in talks with smaller parties as well as the DMK’s long-time ally, Congress.
This is the first time since 1967, when the first non-Congress government (DMK) came to power in the state, that a party other than the two Dravidian heavyweights has emerged victorious. TVK has also reversed the long-standing trend of alternating power between DMK and AIADMK.
The setbacks for the TMC and DMK, key players in the Opposition and the third- and fourth-largest contributors to its Lok Sabha strength, are expected to dent INDIA bloc’s morales.
However, the results came as a breather for the Congress-led UDF in Kerala, which stormed to power after 10 years. The BJP also broke through, ending its long-standing electoral drought by winning three seats. For the grand old party, the victory adds a third southern state to its kitty, after Karnataka and Telangana.
