Hopefully, the BJP will realise that it's the right time for parivartan (change) in its polarising poll strategies after achieving the impossible-looking goal of winning West Bengal, argues Sheela Bhatt.
Key Points
- The 2026 West Bengal assembly election was one of the most polarised Indian elections on religious lines.
- The BJP's battle of West Bengal was not against Indian Muslims; it was against secular-liberal Hindus who want to fight for the rights of illegal and other categories of infiltrators in the border areas of West Bengal.
- The BJP victory was made possible because Mamata Banerjee failed in delivering law and order and modern development. That's a non-negotiable condition for voters in 2026 before casting their vote.
The results of the assembly election in West Bengal are stunning because it gives a wild turn to the national debate of India's Hindu identity at one level and resets the debate of India's plural cultural ethos.
It's difficult to put it in words, but in this election, Muslims sided with the Trinamool Congress and Hindus sided with the Bharatiya Janata Party, almost. This was one of the most polarised Indian elections on religious lines.
It reminded many of the 1946 provincial election of United Bengal. The 2026 election in West Bengal will never be forgotten. It reopens the wounds of the distant past and paves a new socio-political culture in India's most important region for the future.
BJP's Strategic Campaign and Core Issues
The BJP initiated the debate about how many and in which districts Bangladeshi citizens should be allowed to settle in West Bengal and why the TMC was quiet about settlers from Bangladesh.
The BJP was testing the tolerance level of Bengali Hindus. The BJP's battle of West Bengal was not against Indian Muslims; it was against secular-liberal Hindus who want to fight for the rights of illegal and other categories of infiltrators in the border areas of West Bengal.
The BJP had a different view and it fought the election handling this issue upfront.
Today, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh will profusely thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for working hard to win the historically important state of West Bengal through the ballot box. The RSS has been waiting for this since 1947.
In the ongoing debate over Hindutva, the Hindu-Muslim relationship and illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, the secular-liberal forces once more find that their audience is shrinking.
Without diluting their stance of 'having an emphatic Hindu identity of an Indian nation', the BJP, a right-wing and conservative party, went the whole hog to win West Bengal.
The Special Intensive Revision of the voters list conducted by the Election Commission helped the BJP win votes in a few constituencies.
If you study minutely what all the BJP has done, it is clear that this election for them was the climax of their nationalist march.
Like war and love, they had a no holds barred approach to envelop West Bengal in their fold.
Unseen Voters and TMC's Challenges
This election will also be remembered for those Indians whose names were, unfortunately, not on the revised list and could not vote.
It was astonishing to see that these 27 lakh people without clear citizenship titles were in 'no voting rights land' and, sadly, few of us cared for them.
It's not possible that all 27 lakh people will be found 'illegal'. Few activists gave them lip service but nobody -- no institution, not even the Supreme Court -- expedited justice for them.
Their cases and claims are in adjudication, but the CPI-M, the Congress or other parties in West Bengal didn't raise their issue as strongly as it should have been.
Even the TMC protested more against the Election Commission but didn't join Muslims, who were barred from voting, to hit the streets in big numbers. The issue polarised Bengali society, but the TMC decided to play it safe.
The BJP victory was made possible because Mamata Banerjee failed in delivering law and order and modern development.
That's a non-negotiable condition for voters in 2026 before casting their vote. She allowed the building up of violent gangs in each mohalla that started fleecing TMC voters.
People started having Mamata didi fatigue. She didn't take strong action against illegal migrants who started infiltrating middle class colonies and lives. That was so visible in the border areas.
Whenever in Indian society the family feels insecure, society gets restless and looks for change in the political set up.
It's not as much as a BJP victory as it is the failure of the TMC administration and Mamata's leadership in understanding this issue.
Key Factors in BJP's Success
There is no election plank more important than 'women's safety' in Indian elections. The BJP took full advantage of the ground realities where the 2024 rape and murder of a young lady doctor at the R G Kar hospital and the 2025 Sandeshkhali case touched Bengali families.
This fight was harsher and fiercer for the Sangh Parivar than the fight to win Gujarat or Uttar Pradesh.
Bengalis by sanskar would have rejected the Modi-Shah brand of politics and their language in any other era, but now, multiple circumstances came together in which the Bengali people have trusted the Modi-Shah jugalbandi.
In the land of Rabindra Sangeet, Santiniketan and Satyajit Ray, Narendra Modi appealed to Bengalis to make West Bengal a part of Viksit Bharat while Amit Shah promised to protect voters during polling and post-election.
Shah's appeal to be the protector of people against political violence helped create trust between the BJP and the first-time BJP voters.
Bhupendra Yadav, the BJP's poll in charge, and Bengal prabhari Sunil Bansal did tremendous hard work by replicating the booth-level network as it exists in BJP-ruled states.
In March 2026, Amit Shah at a special press conference announced that the BJP would implement the 7th Pay Commission in West Bengal. The BJP's victory means an immediate salary hike for government employees in West Bengal.
Amit Shah also promised to increase the cut-off age for youth by five years to apply for government jobs.
A third Shah promise is to fill up all vacancies in the state government by December 2026.
To attract women voters, the BJP has promised to pay Rs 3,000 every month to all eligible women. It's obvious that no political party gets 45% of votes unless poll promises are people driven.
Historical Context and Future Implications
At the time of writing this column, the BJP's vote share in West Bengal is around 45%, just 4% more than the TMC.
Muslims, normally, don't vote for the BJP, so this high vote share means about two-thirds of Hindu voters have voted for the BJP. This is the result of many factors.
One of it is historic. The Amit Shah-led BJP strategy to win West Bengal included recalling the 1946 provincial election of United Bengal.
Then, the Muslim League won a majority because of 117 seats reserved for Muslims. The League won 113 seats.
The Congress contested 78 general seats and won 54. The Muslim League was led by Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy who turned the election into a referendum for the demand for Pakistan.
A few months after the election, brutal communal riots broke out on Direct Action Day, August 16, 1946, which eventually led to the partition of Bengal. Suhrawardy's role was severely criticised by the Congress and Hindus.
West Bengal's result completes one long and exhaustive round of debate on Hindutva.
Hopefully, the BJP will realise that it's the right time for parivartan (change) in its polarising poll strategies after achieving the impossible-looking goal of winning West Bengal.
Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff
© 2026