The just-concluded Assembly elections in four states and one Union territory were pivotal—each for its own reasons, but also because collectively the outcomes reflect the zeitgeist of our times. They were not fought according to well-settled norms. The institutions mandated to be the sentinels of the exercise from the start to the finish—from ensuring that bona fide voters were on the rolls, to allowing electors to vote safely and fairly, counting the votes that were cast correctly, and giving the participating parties a level field—came under scrutiny. Rhetoric intended to hurt the feelings of certain communities and allegations of vote-buying were in play, and yet, action against the offenders was taken selectively. Every actor on the scene was impacted: from the mainline parties to the satellites floating in their orbit and even entities that were entirely on their own.
The verdict from the two big states in this round, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, defied the expectations of certain sections. In the end, ideology inspired by the RSS or the Nehruvian idea of India underpinned everything that unfolded.
To the BJP, West Bengal and, to a much smaller extent, Tamil Nadu marked momentous shifts in its national presence. As for the east, whoever imagined that the BJP—wedded to the slogan “Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan”—would fan out in the northeast and to the east of Jharkhand, step by step, to mark new conquests? For that is how the BJP regards its geographical acquisitions: a new terrain is a conquest, and not merely expansion.
The original slogan had emerged from Hindus displaced by Partition. They used their status as refugees to build a strong commercial base and leverage the acquired clout in northern politics in a small way. Which is why the BJP’s victory in West Bengal means more than adding another state to its list of conquests.
The state was never off the BJP’s radar even as it notched serial successes in the north and the west. Its leaders displayed envy, fascination and resentment at the Left Front’s dominance. Banerjee was not an anathema to start with. Her relationship with the BJP was Atal Bihari Vajpayee-centred and happened in patches. When Vajpayee lost the confidence motion by a single vote in 1999 and it was speculated that the BJP-helmed NDA could carry on under another leader, Banerjee refused to endorse the move and professed loyalty to him. She finally left the coalition in 2004.
The BJP often delves into history to illustrate its Bengal links. RSS founder K B Hedgewar studied medicine in Kolkata and joined the Bengali revolutionary society, Anushilan Samiti, before setting up the Sangh. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who was in the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha, launched the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the BJP’s precursor, in 1951 and was its first president. The BJP adopted him as an icon for his staunch opposition to Article 370. Mookerjee was arrested in 1953 for crossing the border to Kashmir and died a few months later in detention.
The BJP uses other Bengal-related tropes, too. The concept of Bharat Mata—integral to the party’s iconography—was conceived by Kiran Chandra Banerjee in 1873 in a Bengali play, while the national song, Vande Mataram, was composed by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. It was set to music by Rabindranath Tagore, although some claim it was by Jadunath Bhattacharya. Swami Vivekananda and Aurobindo Ghosh complete the Sangh-BJP’s phalanx of icons as they have been co-opted in its pantheon.
But history was loath to shape the BJP’s destiny in Bengal, which like Tamil Nadu was indifferent to the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. The use of strong-arm tactics, a propensity to play divisive politics and the central BJP’s unfamiliarity with Bangla and the state’s cultural symbols meant that the doors to Kolkata were never fully open.
However, a critical opening came when the Tata Nano factory was jettisoned from Bengal in 2008. The then Left Front government was set to hand the Tatas a large parcel of land in Singur to manufacture the small car, but Mamata launched a huge agitation and thwarted the plan. Narendra Modi, who was then the Gujarat chief minister, texted a one-word message to Ratan Tata: “Swagatam” (Welcome). The Tatas shifted the plant to Sanand in Gujarat.
This February, Modi addressed a meeting at the abandoned land in Singur which, paradoxically, was attended by farmers who had opposed the project but now seem reconciled to the prospect of industrialisation to benefit the coming generations. While the opposition to land acquisition worked to the TMC’s advantage in the 2011 and subsequent elections, the irony is that in 2026, below-30 voters backed the BJP’s version of economic reforms in their impatience for investments in Bengal and hunger for jobs in the state.
The other factors that fuelled the BJP’s victory leapt straight out of its playbook. Evoke memories of Partition, extend the theme to the alleged influx of “illegal” immigrants from Bangladesh, play up the TMC’s alleged pandering to Muslims at the “cost” of Hindu interests, and highlight the attack on officers who visited Sandeshkhali to interrogate a TMC MLA on charges of corruption and sexual assault.
But the damage to Mamata’s pro-women image couldn’t be contained after the August 2024 rape and murder of a trainee doctor at Kolkata’s R G Kar Medical College and Hospital. The BJP fleshed out the basic storyline with typical bellicosity and made it the core of the larger themes of Mamata’s gender “insensitivity” and Bengal’s law-and-order problem. The campaign resonated as effectively as Delhi’s Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder and the 1995 episode in Lucknow when BSP leader Mayawati was allegedly set upon by Samajwadi Party activists in a state guest house. The BJP played up the occurrence so vividly that it sent the SP to the opposition for the next few elections.
Tamil Nadu, captive so far to the binary politics of the Dravidian parties DMK and AIADMK, faces political fluidity after ages with the emergence of C Joseph Vijay’s Tamil Vettri Kazhagam as the single largest party. Among the many suitors purportedly courting the former film star is the Congress, which declared support to the TVK after snapping ties with its old ally, the DMK. Charges of betrayal and opportunism flew thick and fast from the DMK. Should a partner of several years be dumped unceremoniously because it lost one election? But if Vijay could be a long-term player and opportunism is the name of the game, can the Congress be denied a shot at this brand of realpolitik? More so as the BJP is a past master at making and breaking unholy alliances through questionable means.
Radhika Ramaseshan | Columnist and political commentator
(Views are personal)
