'People Voted In Anger Against Mamata Banerjee'

'The nepotism, corruption, bad governance and 15 years of rampant crime that has happened across West Bengal under her rule led to her ouster.'

Mamata Banerjee has finally lost West Bengal to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

She could not repeat her success in the 2021 assembly elections where she won 215 seats out of 293, proving to everyone that the BJP might rule every other state in India but when it comes to West Bengal she was the boss.

This myth was broken on Monday, May 4, 2026, with Banerjee's Trinamool Congress trailing with 82 seats while the BJP crossed the magic figure of 200 seats, putting paid to 15 years of TMC rule.

She had come to power in 2011 after ending the Communist Party of India-Marxist's 34-year rule.

This is the first time the BJP will form a government in West Bengal, so what does the future hold for Banerjee? What lies ahead for West Bengal? And why did the people of West Bengal reject the TMC?

Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff spoke to Upendra M Pradhan, Darjeeling-based political analyst and Editor-at-Large at the Darjeeling Chronicle news portal.

Pradhan had been hounded by the TMC government for writing against its misrule and misgovernance until the courts gave him relief from arrest.

How do you view Mamata Banerjee's defeat in the West Bengal assembly elections?

When you become too arrogant and you who have risen from grassroots politics, you become completely cut off from the grassroots, then this kind of election result is bound to happen.

The CPI-M suffered from the same hubris and so did Mamata Banerjee.

The people of West Bengal have had enough and told her now is the time to go.

This vote is more of anger against Mamata's rule than in favour of the BJP.

The nepotism, corruption, bad governance and 15 years of rampant crime that has happened across West Bengal under her rule led to her ouster.

'Goons ruled West Bengal and Mamata lost touch with reality'

What about the cadre-based party tag which the Trinamool Congress had? Isn't it difficult to defeat a cadre-based party?

You should understand how Mamata Banerjee came to power.

She came to power by defeating the CPI-M which at that time was a cadre-based party. At that time, in 2011, it was thought the CPI-M was unassailable.

She rode the wave of Singur and Nandigram against the CPI-M and ended their 34-year rule. By that time the people of West Bengal had realised that the CPI-M cannot take their state forward in terms of development. They had a goonda raj running.

The people of West Bengal were sick and tired of the CPI-M so they voted for Mamata Banerjee in the hope she will form an alternate form of government, but what Mamata did was encourage all those who left the CPI-M to join her party.

She subsumed a majority of CPI-M into her party. In turn Mamata's party became a de facto CPI-M of West Bengal.

They were promoting goondaism which the CPI-M was promoting in their rule. They started promoting the same type of land mafia, sand mafia and money mafia type of people. TMC became the defacto CPI-M in West Bengal.

People voted for Mamata Banerjee in 2011 hoping she would bring in changes in governance but the only change she brought in was by bringing the goons of CPI-M in her party. Now, these goons controlled people at the grassroots level.

When an incident like Sandeshkhali happened people expect Mamata Banerjee to take a stance.

As chief minister of a state people expect Mamata to call for a CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) probe in the case because no matter which party the goon belonged to he needs to be punished. But she didn't do that.

When R G Kar (rape case) happened she went on to protect the goons and even recently when another rape case (Paschim Bardhaman) happened she said women should not venture out after 8 pm.

Every time a crime happened she made an excuse on behalf of the criminal instead of saying 'Not under my watch'.

Even though the TMC was a cadre-based party her cadres were goons, contractors, school teachers who were recruited through the back channel. All the civic volunteers were her cadres, they were called as civic police in West Bengal, and they were influential in their respective region and people used to fear them.

When that fear was removed with the huge deployment of (central forces) -- there were villages in West Bengal that have not voted ever since the TMC came to power as they were never allowed to vote -- these individuals voted for the first time. You can imagine the anger within which they must have gone and voted.

So even though TMC is a cadre-based party Mamata Banerjee had given power to goons of the TMC. These goons ruled West Bengal and Mamata being a grassroots leader lost touch with reality.

'In many villages and districts of West Bengal people were not allowed to vote'

What happened in 2021? How did she win with such a huge lead, 215 seats out of 293, and in five years things went from bad to worse for her?

In 2021, if you see the vote difference between the BJP and TMC, it was 10 percent vote share.

If 6 crore (60 million) voters voted in 2021, then the BJP lost by 60 lakh ( 6 million) votes across West Bengal. And even if she won, the victory margin in many assembly seats was 5,000 to 7,000 votes. The difference was not unassailable like 20,000 to 30,000 votes.

In many villages and districts of West Bengal people were not allowed to vote. You give your voting slip to some other person and he would go and vote in your name.

'Mamata's allegations are rhetoric, preparing her cadres to say the EVMs have been hacked'

But this is exactly what Mamata is saying -- that the CBI, ED, Election Commission were all playing on the BJP's side to ensure her defeat. That they took over election control rooms. Is there any truth in it?

There are no takers for Mamata's allegations.

What used to happen was the TMC used to do all these practices in the past. This year the Election Commission has ensured that there is 100 percent recording of everything.

Now if Mamata questions something she has the right to go to court. She has gone to courts multiple times and the court can look into the footage and decide.

Mamata's allegations are rhetoric, preparing her cadres to say the EVMs have been hacked. They use this tactic everytime after their defeat.

The reality, however, is that people have voted in anger against Mamata Banerjee.

Secondly, 10 percent of West Bengal voters who work in cities like Benglauru, Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and other cities ensured they come to West Bengal to vote.

The figure could be more in terms of percentage of such voters. This election the fear gripped such voters that if they do not vote then in SIR (Special Intensive Revision) their name would be deleted.

They work in other cities and have seen how other cities have developed compared to their own cities in West Bengal where development is not visible. These voters became sick and tired of not seeing development and have overwhelmingly voted against the TMC.

These 10 percent of voters blame the TMC as they do not want to go out of West Bengal for work but have to do so as there is no work in their hometowns.

'In any Muslim house the older generation votes for the TMC out of respect or out of fear'

What about the lakhs of voters deleted from SIR? Did that contribute to Mamata's defeat?

That is also one of the factors. We will have to wait for victory and defeat margins when the actual voting numbers come out.

Take, for example, the Darjeeling assembly constituency. Out of 23,000 voters 18,000 voters names were deleted. Now we will have to see the winning margin of the winner as among the names deleted under SIR from Darjeeling constituency are BJP voters too. Darjeeling is a BJP stronghold.

Didn't Muslim voters stay consolidated behind Mamata?

We will have to wait for the results to decipher that, but I feel Muslim women voters have voted against Mamata.

In rural villages Muslim women voters started voting against Mamata from 2021 but an analysis was not done properly at that point of time.

This time around if a good analysis is done you will find it. In any Muslim house the older generation votes for the TMC out of respect or out of fear but their children who are between 18 and 35 vote for the BJP.

What about the BJP's communal politics in West Bengal?

You have to live in West Bengal to know what the Muslims of West Bengal feel.

Even Muslims who live in the border regions of West Bengal want the border between India and Bangladesh to shut. They want Bangladeshis and Rohingyas chucked out of India.

In West Bengal there is minority reservation and some Bangladeshi Muslim having connections with a TMC leader will get a job but a local Muslim from West Bengal will never got the job.

This was common knowledge in West Bengal's Muslim society. They too were against the TMC politics, but let the results come out in detail and we will come to know more about this issue.

I am not talking of government jobs as there are not many jobs in West Bengal any way.

I am talking of, say, the job of road repair or road construction in West Bengal which local Muslims never got. It was Bangladeshi Muslims who used to get these jobs. All this was thanks to TMC local leaders as they used to get cheap labour from Bangladesh.

'Mamata ran a very combative form of governance. She was not willing to listen'

What does the future hold for Mamata Banerjee?

I think Mamata should gracefully retire. She did what she could. She has given her best but she faltered in the last 15 years.

They say if you fight the devil long enough you become the devil. She fought against the CPI-M for 34 long years, and by the time she won and came to govern she forgot that contesting and winning versus governing are two different aspects of politics.

She ran a very combative form of governance. She was not willing to listen. If some section of people complained against her she labelled them as Maoist or whatever, but never listened to them.

Her worldview became shared by 50 to 100 bureaucrats. She was surrounded by them all the time who told her 'Madam aap hi sab kuch ho jo sahi karte ho (you are everything and what you do is always right).'

When leaders suffer from a God syndrome their downfall is bound to happen. If you lose contact with the grassroots then the grassroots too will lose contact with you.

The worst thing Mamata Banerjee did was she listened to a lot to bureaucrats. In West Bengal senior police officers never retired. You can check what happened to five or 10 former director generals of police of after their retirement. You will find that they were made advisor to this or that department post their retirement or as senior officer on special duty.

The same thing happened with chief secretaries who retired as they too were given placements here or there. The entire bureaucracy was running politics rather than politics running ther bureaucracy.

What about the famous saying 'What Bengal thinks today India thinks tomorrow'? It looks like Bengal thought very late about joining the BJP bandwagon which the rest of India did a long time ago.

The problem is that West Bengal stopped thinking when the CPI-M came to power in 1977. There was a culture in Bengal of free and independent thinking and all of a sudden overnight that became criminal in the eyes of CPI-M.

Bengalis who were thinking today what India will think tomorrow became criminals in the state overnight and that process further accelerated under Mamata's rule.

I suffered multiple cases as a journalist over frivolous charges by the Mamata government for writing against her. All the cases were quashed by the Calcutta high court or Darjeeling district court, but still the TMC never stopped pressing charges against me under some frivolous charges.

'Even Bengali Muslims have voted for the BJP'

There is fear thaty a BJP government may polarise Bengal which has not see communal riots after the Communists came to power in 1977?

The TMC may try some disturbance here and there. There are an equal number of Muslims in Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh as in West Bengal and other states. They have a BJP government ruling for the past 10 years. There has been no communal riots.

Even in Gujarat, if you see, communal riots were an annual event before 2002 but after that there has been no communal riot.

Bengalis per se are very tolerant people, be it Hindus or Muslims. They are respectful to each other. But what happens when you bring radicals from across the border in Bangladesh or other states, then the problem starts.

And that is why I told you even local Bengali Muslims have voted for the BJP. I will be able to give you a clear answer on this after I see more data that comes out after the final results are out.