In the high-stakes theatre of Indian democracy, where every ballot carries the echo of ambition and ideology, the elections in Tamil Nadu, Assam, West Bengal, Puducherry and Kerala have emerged as a defining tribulation for the BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.
These are no ordinary state contests. They represent a colossal investment of political capital, treasure and manpower by the ruling dispensation at the Centre. Senior Cabinet ministers, more than a dozen chief ministers, over 250 MPs and some 10,000 party workers have been mobilised for door-to-door campaigns, transforming these battlegrounds into extensions of the national arena.
For Modi and Shah, the exercise is as personal as it is strategic. It is a test of whether the momentum of their decade-long dominance can be sustained, or whether the winds of the 2024 Lok Sabha verdict, where the BJP fell short of an outright majority, signal a deeper and more unsettling political tide. The objectives are ambitious and layered.
In Assam, the BJP-led NDA seeks a historic third consecutive term building on victories in 2016 and 2021 to cement its northeastern foothold and project an unbroken narrative of governance. In Puducherry, the alliance aims to retain power through its NDA partner, reinforcing its presence in the Union territory.
Tamil Nadu offers the prospect of inflicting a blow on M K Stalin’s DMK government by forging a formidable alliance with the AIADMK, potentially breaching the Dravidian fortress that has long resisted the BJP’s national surge.
Kerala, a historically inhospitable terrain, is targeted for modest but symbolically significant inroads, with the party eyeing at least half a dozen seats to puncture the Left’s and Congress’s entrenched regional strongholds. And in West Bengal, the prize is nothing less than unseating Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress as it aims for a fourth consecutive term.
For both Modi and Shah, Assam and West Bengal have become matters of personal prestige. The duo invested enormous political capital in West Bengal following the BJP’s breakthrough in 2019, only to suffer reverses that continue to sting. Those setbacks are quantifiable.
In the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections, the BJP surged dramatically from three seats and roughly 10 percent of the vote in 2016 to 77 seats with nearly 39 percent of the popular vote. Yet, it fell decisively short of power as the Trinamool Congress swept home with over 200 seats and 48 percent votes. These figures illuminate the BJP’s persistent struggle to translate organisational muscle and central patronage into decisive state-level victories in eastern India.
The scenarios emerging from these verdicts carry profound implications for both immediate governance and the long arc toward 2029. Consider the most favourable outcome for the BJP: retaining Assam with authority, crossing the century mark in West Bengal and register credible gains in Kerala, while making tangible inroads in Tamil Nadu and holding Puducherry.
Such a sweep would burnish Modi’s aura of invincibility, the image of a leader who has steered the world’s largest democracy through economic turbulence, global realignments and domestic transformation with an unerring electoral Midas touch.
Shah, who engineered the BJP’s ascent from a regional contender to the world’s largest political party by membership, would emerge as the indispensable architect of an extraordinary electoral edifice. Opposition forces, already fragmented, would face even stronger headwinds.
With dominion over an expanded swathe of states, the ruling coalition could contemplate significant constitutional amendments, recalibrating the balance of federal power, accelerating institutional reform and entrenching a more centralised model of governance.
In this triumphant script, Modi might initiate a sweeping reshuffle of both government and party organisation, inducting a younger cohort to infuse fresh energy into an ageing structure. Chief ministers could be rotated and governance models recalibrated to prioritise economic self reliance and cultural assertion. The 2029 national strategy would then be scripted as a victory lap, a narrative of India’s unstoppable rise, seamlessly weaving together development, diplomacy and civilisational confidence. Economic policy would tilt decisively toward accelerated liberalisation.
On the ideological front, the cultural nationalist project would gather irreversible momentum, enabling the party to push beyond its Hindi heartland core through perfected alliance management in the South and the East.
Conversely, a poor performance—defeat in Assam, stagnation in West Bengal, shutout in Kerala, negligible gains in Tamil Nadu and the loss of Puducherry—would trigger the second significant course correction since the 2024 setback. It would pierce the narrative of inevitability and compel the Modi-Shah duo to confront the limits of top-down charisma against entrenched regionalism, anti-incumbency and the stubborn diversity of Indian political culture.
Their credibility as the twin engines of both electoral victory and effective governance would be meaningfully eroded. The 2029 strategy would necessarily pivot from ideological maximalism to pragmatic coalition-building, from centralising reform to calibrated welfare populism, and from assertive messaging to a more pluralistic register that accommodates Dravidian, Left and regional sensitivities.
NDA allies such as Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu would demand greater concessions, converting 2029 from a coronation into a negotiation. Within the BJP and the RSS, voices advocating collective leadership could grow louder, gradually diluting the personalised command structure that has defined this political era.
History offers sobering parallels. Jawaharlal Nehru’s sustained electoral dominance allowed him to embed secular democracy and non-alignment so deeply that they defined India’s self-image for decades. Indira Gandhi’s 1971 landslide unleashed sweeping changes, from bank nationalisation to unprecedented centralisation, which redrew the economic and social landscape irreversibly. Modi and Shah stand at a comparable juncture. Their project, rooted in cultural nationalism, economic modernisation and assertive diplomacy, has already altered the very grammar of India’s national conversation.
The 2026 verdicts will determine whether this disruptive transformation hardens into permanence or invites meaningful correction. These five elections are no mere regional skirmishes. They constitute the first major electoral reckoning since the 2024 Lok Sabha verdict, a high-altitude barometer of the national mood and the foundational stress test that will lay the groundwork for 2029.
In the final reckoning, the outcomes will imprint themselves indelibly upon both men. A commanding performance would reaffirm Modi as India’s unchallenged helmsman and Shah as its peerless strategist. A setback, however, would signal the subtle yet unmistakable erosion of their aura of invincibility, compelling them to navigate the unfamiliar and treacherous waters of vulnerability, internal scrutiny and strategic reinvention ahead of the defining contest that awaits.
Read all columns by Prabhu Chawla
PRABHU CHAWLA
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com
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