New Delhi: The assembly elections for four states and one union territory concluded on 4 May, and the results have posed some key questions. What boosted a political novice’s chances in a state as large as Tamil Nadu? How could Assam duck the anti-incumbency wave? How did the BJP achieve victory in West Bengal? What happens to the Left parties now?
Global media is seeking answers to some of these questions.
“The Hindu nationalist party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India broke new ground Monday in its decades-long campaign to remake the world’s largest democracy, winning legislative elections in one of the country’s most populous states, where it has never before come close to ruling,” Alex Travelli, Hari Kumar, and Pragati K.B. of The New York Times report.
The BJP won over 200 out of 294 seats in West Bengal, while it needed only 148 seats to form the government.
The win is particularly a “boost for the expansionist Hindu-first politics” of Modi’s party.
It adds to the BJP’s winning streak since the party lost its majority in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
“Since then, the BJP has won in every state election where it devoted significant resources, securing control of the powerful regional parliaments that are in charge of social programs and law enforcement within their borders,” says the NYT.
Other states where the BJP has won elections include Haryana, Maharashtra, and Bihar.
Even the controversy around the Special Intensive Revision in West Bengal was overshadowed by the margin of the BJP’s victory, The Economist explains.
“Mr Modi is hardly the first Indian leader to use his power over institutions to tilt elections in his favour. But he is perhaps the most ruthless in doing so since Indira Gandhi cancelled elections altogether in the mid-1970s.”
While the electoral role revision left 9 million people disenfranchised, that “cannot explain Mr Modi’s dominance, which depends above all on his ability to unify Hindu voters”.
“The BJP had already begun to march eastwards from its Hindi-speaking heartlands, winning Tripura in 2018 and Odisha in 2024. But West Bengal was the prize it had long wanted.”
“The state has a rich history, notably as a hotbed for nationalist politics,” the column adds.
The column also notes that the steady increase in the BJP’s vote share over the last three elections shows that “Bengalis were fed up after 15 years of TMC rule”.
“Under Ms Banerjee, industries moved out, and the state’s economy fell behind that of much of the rest of the country. Voters had come to see her party as authoritarian and corrupt; the BJP focused on a teacher-recruitment scandal, while vowing to bring investment and to match Ms Banerjee’s promises of freebies.”
“But none shook the earth the way that victory in West Bengal did Monday,” the report adds.
Soutik Biswas of the BBC writes about how West Bengal, “the great exception to Modi’s political advance”, has eventually been conquered.
In the years following Modi’s victory in 2014, the BJP has formed governments in the remotest states, yet “Bengal—argumentative and steeped in a self-image of cultural exceptionalism—remained stubbornly resistant.”
“With more than 100 million people, West Bengal’s electorate is larger than Germany’s, turning its election into something closer to a nation choosing a government than a routine Indian state poll,” Biswas writes.
He writes that this BJP win is not just a defeat of the incumbent, but rather the completion of the party’s “long march into eastern India”.
But Bengal’s was not the only election with a surprising outcome.
“In Tamil Nadu, MK Stalin’s DMK government was swept aside by actor-turned-politician Vijay and his fledgling TVK party, marking the dramatic return of film-star politics to the state.”
“In Kerala, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) defeated the Left Democratic Front (LDF) after two consecutive terms, ending the last remaining Communist-led state government in India.”
Andres Schipani and Michael Stott report for the Financial Times that Mamata asked her supporters to “fight like tiger cubs” and “not lose hope”, urging officers to stay vigilant and not leave counting centres.
Meanwhile, in Assam, the BJP won a third term. “The victories in West Bengal and Assam strengthen Modi’s position as he grapples with economic pressures triggered by the Iran war.”
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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