Next month’s assembly elections in four states and a Union territory may turn out to be the last rodeo for several prominent leaders. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has a huge responsibility on his 80-year-old shoulders. A loss in this election would mean that the Left would not be in power in any state for the first time since 1977. This is not how Vijayan would like to be remembered. The problem is that even if the Left Democratic Front (LDF) beats a decade of anti-incumbency, Vijayan may not get a third term. His party has maintained that the next CM would be decided after the results—that is, if the LDF retains power.
Former Tamil Nadu CM EK Palaniswami of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) has had the better of his detractors and challengers within the party. This election is crucial for the 71-year-old and for a party struggling in the absence of the star power of MG Ramachandran or Jayalalithaa. The party lost the 2021 Assembly election. Another loss is likely to set off another round of implosions in the AIADMK, which the party may not recover from.
Puducherry CM N Rangaswamy of the All India N.R. Congress (AINRC) also has high stakes in this election. It is also essentially a one-man party. A loss in this election—and the fact that Rangaswamy would be 80 by the next—would set the party on a slippery path.
You can trust Union Home Minister Amit Shah to keep in mind all these factors. Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party puts its best foot forward in the coming assembly polls, the party’s chief strategist would know that it is a win-win situation for the BJP in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry. The AIADMK and the AINRC are the BJP’s alliance partners. Shah would love to see the National Democratic Alliance form the government in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. He would also like to see the BJP expand its footprints in Kerala by building on its maiden Lok Sabha win in the southern state in 2024.
But Shah won’t be losing his sleep over these two states and one UT. The fact is that even if the BJP ends up on the losing side, any gains it makes would still bolster the party’s long-cherished goal of putting down regional parties that have stymied its expansion plans in several states.
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BJP’s happy places
Let’s look at Tamil Nadu. If the NDA wins, the BJP gets the chance to taste power in the Dravidian state for the first time, notwithstanding EPS’s current reservation against sharing power. The BJP can build on it to expand its footprints. The MK Stalin-led Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has been one of the trenchant critics of the NDA government at the Centre. It would be good riddance for the BJP.
And if the DMK-led government retains power, it would likely start the process of disintegration of the second big Dravidian party. Whatever space the AIADMK vacates in that scenario would be up for grabs for the BJP, or so it would fancy.
In neighbouring Puducherry, N Rangaswamy has resisted the BJP’s attempt to expand its presence. If the NDA retains power in Puducherry, the BJP would use it to consolidate and expand its presence in the UT. But if the NDA loses power and the AINRC’s political base starts shrinking, the BJP would be there to fill that space.
With a 46 per cent Christian and Muslim population in Kerala, the BJP has struggled to expand in the state, with power alternating between the LDF and the Congress-led UDF. Going by the Left’s track record in West Bengal and Tripura, once it loses power, it tends to give up the fight, leaving the political space for others to fill in. The BJP would look to occupy it. It has already made a huge dent into the Left’s Ezhava vote bank. If the LDF retains power, the BJP will not mind seeing the Congress suffer a third consecutive defeat in the state. As it is, a hung Assembly would be the BJP’s best hope.
In a nutshell, no matter what the results are in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry, the BJP would have reasons to be happy and optimistic.
In Assam, CM Himanta Biswa Sarma has staked his modern, welfarist, and development-oriented image to build an aggressive anti-Muslim poll campaign. With 34 per cent of the state’s Muslims largely concentrated in 23 of the 126 seats after the delimitation, Sarma is ostensibly expecting his polarising campaign to deliver most of the remaining 103 seats to the BJP. As it is, BJP leaders are confident of securing a third consecutive victory in Assam. Even if there is a setback, the party can live with it. There is always next time. And in how many states has the Congress managed to retain power in the Modi-Shah era? And Sarma is only 57 years old.
Having said that, of the four states and one UT going to polls, BJP insiders consider Assam as the only “done deal”.
The West Bengal test
The above scenarios in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry should explain why the BJP is so focused on West Bengal. It’s where the BJP is facing the strongest resistance to its expansionist agenda from a regional party, the Trinamool Congress (TMC). It’s the only state—except Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and a few in the Northeast—where the BJP has never tasted power.
It hurts because it’s also the native state of Bharatiya Jan Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee. TMC chief Mamata Banerjee has also been the most bitter critic of the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre.
The BJP has been able to tame many regional parties—both allies and adversaries. It vanquished the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha. It looks set to appropriate ally Janata Dal (United)’s political space in Bihar sooner rather than later. The Nationalist Congress Party and the Shiv Sena have split in Maharashtra and it’s only a matter of time before the BJP starts expanding on their political turfs. The Bharat Rashtra Samithi in Telangana is on a slide and the BJP is looking to relegate it to the political margins in the near future, setting up a direct contest with the Congress. The Janata Dal (Secular) is dependent on the BJP’s support for survival in Karnataka.
Essentially, the BJP has got the better of most regional parties, many of whom find it safer to enter into a tacit or open alliance with the ruling party at the Centre for survival. That makes the Trinamool Congress—apart from the Samajwadi Party—a big eyesore for the BJP. Mamata Banerjee also makes no bones about her prime ministerial ambition and the fact that only she knows how to defeat the BJP. If she beats the BJP in this election, she would like to become the rallying point for most non-BJP parties—except perhaps the Congress—in the run-up to the next Lok Sabha election.
For Amit Shah, there is also something personal involved in the West Bengal election. It’s about reinforcing his image as the best political and election strategist, a factor that has made him the undisputed No 2 in the ruling dispensation. Another loss to Mamata Banerjee would make a big dent in that image. Shah needs a win in West Bengal more than ever.
It’s also the last round of elections before the crucial Uttar Pradesh Assembly election in February-March 2027, whose result would have a very strong bearing on the succession race in the BJP.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.