Narendra Modi’s BJP was set for its first West Bengal victory, putting Mamata Banerjee’s TMC on course for defeat after 15 years in power.
Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party was set Monday for a landmark victory in West Bengal, breaking through one of India’s most difficult political frontiers and putting Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress on course for defeat after 15 years in power.
Early results from the April state election, counted on May 4, showed the BJP had won or was leading in 200 of the 294 assembly seats by 4:30 p.m. India time, according to Al Jazeera. The TMC was ahead or had won in 87 seats. The BJP’s previous best performance in the state was 77 seats in 2021.
The result is politically significant because West Bengal had long resisted the BJP’s rise, even as Modi’s party expanded through much of northern, western and northeastern India. It also carries symbolic weight for the BJP: Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the BJP’s forerunner, was from the state.
Reports differed on how to frame the state’s scale. Al Jazeera described West Bengal as home to more than 90 million people and said 68.2 million people voted, while the BBC described Bengal’s electorate as larger than Germany’s and referred to more than 100 million people. Both accounts underscored the same point: this was no routine state contest.
Analysts cited in the source reporting pointed to several forces behind the BJP’s rise: fatigue with the TMC’s local political machinery, a sharper BJP campaign, welfare promises and religious polarisation. Rahul Verma, an election observer and politics scholar, told Al Jazeera that Banerjee remained personally popular but that anger toward the TMC’s organization had become visible. “Without serious anti-incumbency, West Bengal would not have gotten this kind of result,” he said.
The campaign also sharpened long-running arguments over religion and identity. The BJP has accused the TMC of favouring Muslims, while Banerjee has framed her defence of minorities as part of her opposition to Hindu majoritarian politics. In one voter account reported by Al Jazeera, Seema Das, a Hindu domestic worker who had previously backed the TMC, said relatives persuaded her that Banerjee — widely called “Didi,” or elder sister — had lost touch and “favours Muslims.”
BJP state leader Suvendu Adhikari said there had been a “Hindu consolidation” of votes, while also claiming some Muslim voters moved away from the TMC. Al Jazeera noted that the claim about Muslim voters could not be verified until the Election Commission of India releases detailed vote data.
The BBC account highlighted the BJP’s effort to challenge the TMC’s welfare base, particularly among women, with promises of larger cash transfers and expanded benefits. Political scientists cited by the BBC said the TMC’s welfare-and-organization model appeared less able to contain anti-incumbency and polarisation this time.
The election was also shadowed by a disputed revision of electoral rolls. The Election Commission said the special intensive revision was meant to remove duplicate or ineligible names. Opposition parties, activists and civil society groups alleged it disenfranchised poor and minority voters, especially Muslims and migrant communities in border districts.
Al Jazeera reported that more than 9 million people were removed from the voting list, including nearly 6 million declared absentee or deceased and about 3 million who could not vote because tribunals did not hear their cases in time. The BBC separately cited nearly 3 million voters still awaiting tribunal decisions before polling. Analysts in both reports cautioned that the voter-roll controversy alone could not explain the scale of the BJP’s showing.
Banerjee, in a video statement as counting continued, urged TMC workers not to leave counting booths until the last ballots were tallied and accused central forces of being used to pressure her party. The federal government had deployed 2,400 companies of paramilitary troops, saying they were needed to help election officials conduct the vote amid fears of political violence.
Elsewhere in Monday’s state results, the BJP returned to power in Assam and a BJP-led alliance won Puducherry, while the Congress-led alliance defeated the left coalition in Kerala and actor-politician Vijay’s TVK scored a surprise victory in Tamil Nadu. But the West Bengal result stood out as the clearest national signal: a breakthrough that strengthens the BJP in eastern India and weakens one of Modi’s most prominent regional opponents. Final seat tallies and detailed vote data from the Election Commission will show how broad that shift was.
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