The one unmistakable message from the results of the Assembly elections was that of a yearning for change. And the incumbents, from the TMC in Bengal to DMK to LDF, bore the brunt. Only Assam and Puducherry bucked the trend.
Hailing his party’s performance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the victory in West Bengal as “historic” and told BJP workers in New Delhi that “a new chapter has begun in Bengal’s future. It has become ‘bhay-mukt’ (free of fear).”
“Last year on November 14, when the Bihar results came, from the same venue of the BJP headquarters, I told all of you that Gangaji flows forward towards Ganga Sagar from Bihar. Today, from Gangotri to Ganga Sagar, only the lotus blooms,” Modi said.
“There should be a change in the political habits of the state. Today when the BJP has won, not badla (retribution) but badlav (change) needs to be talked about. Not bhay (fear), bhavishya (the future) should be spoken of… Let us end this endless circle of violence,” he said.
“Nari Shakti is another pillar of Viksit Bharat. But the Congress tried to stop it… These parties did not let the Nari Shakti Adhiniyam pass in Parliament. I had cautioned such parties they will have to face the ire of women. Today, the Congress party, TMC and DMK have been punished by the women of this country,” he said.
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BJP president Nitin Nabin said, “From Gangotri to Ganga Sagar, the BJP-led NDA government is being formed. This isn’t just a geographical expansion; it’s an expansion of trust and our ideology.”
The BJP’s victory in West Bengal, 15 years after Banerjee single-handedly breached the red bastion to end the Left Front’s uninterrupted 34-year rule, was stunning in its sweep and scale. The BJP retained its stronghold in North Bengal and breached the TMC strongholds of South Bengal, including Kolkata, North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas.
Such was the political tsunami that over 20 ministers in the Mamata government were trailing in their constituencies with counting of votes still underway in the evening.
Having won Odisha in 2024, the BJP’s victory in West Bengal, the final frontier that it was so desperate to conquer, means the party now has absolute electoral dominance in the east, west and north of the country, effectively relegating the Congress to the south and leaving the Opposition INDIA bloc in disarray.
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The Congress, which has governments in Telangana and Karnataka, heaved a sigh of relief after returning to power in Kerala. But it was routed in Assam by the BJP which won the state in convincing fashion for the third time in a row.
The expansion of BJP’s electoral footprint since 2014 has been no less than spectacular. According to the party, its number of MLAs in states have gone up from 773 in September 2013 to 1,798 now. After the West Bengal victory, the BJP will have 17 Chief Ministers. With NDA, that number goes up to 22.
If the BJP scripted history in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu witnessed the dawn of a new era with Vijay’s TVK stunning the DMK and the AIADMK – the two Dravidian parties had been taking turns to rule the state since 1967. In fact, Tamil Nadu created history by electing a regional party to power for the first time in India.
The mood for change, which translated into a massive anti-DMK vote, was so intense that the ruling party was routed even in its stronghold of Chennai. Chief Minister M K Stalin lost from his Kolathur seat by a margin of 8,795 votes. Several of his cabinet colleagues were trailing. His son Udhayanidhi Stalin, however, was leading from Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni.
Vijay’s victory on debut is historic too. It is only the third time in India’s electoral history that a party has captured power less than two years after its formation – the earlier instances being N T Rama Rao’s stunning victory in undivided Andhra Pradesh in 1983, nine months after he launched the outfit, and the Asom Gana Parishad’s capture of Assam in 1985, two months after its formation.
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Vijay was leading in both Perambur and Tiruchirappalli (East) but his party had not managed to go past the halfway mark of 117 in the 234-member House.
It means that Tamil Nadu is also heading on a path which it has never taken so far – a hung Assembly, the possibility of either a coalition government or parties providing outside support to the TVK government.
The TVK is said to be in talks with smaller parties, including the Congress, to shore up the numbers. The TVK has either won or is leading in 108 seats, 10 short of the simple majority. DMK allies Congress, Muslim League, CPM, CPI, VCK and the DMDK have either won or are leading in 14 seats.
The winds of change blew in Kerala as well where the Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government, which had created history by retaining power in 2021, suffered a stunning defeat at the hands of the Congress-led UDF.
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The UDF has won or is leading in 102 of the 140 seats, giving the Congress a much needed electoral relief. Since 2014, the Congress had won elections in states only seven times. The victory in Kerala is the eighth. The victory of the UDF was so convincing that the LDF tally plummeted to just 35 – of which 26 went to the CPM and eight to the CPI.
While Pinarayi Vijayan retained his Dharmadam seat with a lesser margin, many of his cabinet colleagues fell by the wayside in the UDF wave.
The BJP, which has been trying hard to make inroads in Kerala, won three seats for the first time. While the party’s state unit president Rajeev Chandrasekhar won from Nemon, former Union Minister V Muraleedharan emerged victorious in Kazhakoottam by a slender margin of 428 votes. The third seat it won was Chathannoor.
While West Bengal and Tamil Nadu voted for unprecedented change, Assam remained an outlier with the BJP winning the state for the third time in a row. In fact, the party has only grown bigger in the state. Its tally went up from 60 to 82. The Congress slumped to 19 from 29. With its allies, the BJP is leading in as many as 97 of the 126 seats. Congress state unit president Gaurav Gogoi faced his first electoral defeat in Jorhat.
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In Puducherry, the NDA, consisting of the All India NR Congress and the BJP, is set to retain power. The NR Congress had won or was ahead in 12 of the 30 seats. The DMK stood at five and the BJP at four. The TVK made its presence felt with two seats. The Congress, which once ruled the state, could bag only one.
