Elections are won, elections are lost. But some constituencies leave multiple messages and they do in more ways than one.
Serampore and Chinsurah in Hooghly, and Keshiary in West Midnapore, had not gone to any other party other than Mamata Banerjee's TMC since 2011.
In Sabang, veteran minister Manas Bhunia (a former Congress leader) — who had won seven consecutive terms — was this year humbled by the BJP in his own pocket-borrow.
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| Voring Day - Purba Bardhaman - April 29th |
Of West Bengal’s 294 Assembly seats, 49 have an electorate that is nearly 90 per cent Hindu — and the BJP swept all of them.
The scale of that sweep tells the story of the vote and the unprecedented Hindu unity.
Some pro-right wing activists say it was for the first time since the 1905 division of Bengal that the Hindu consolidation took place in the state.
It was not always so. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had led in only 20 of these 49 Assembly segments; the Trinamool Congress was ahead in 29. In 2021, when Mamata Banerjee returned to power for a third consecutive term, her party had won 27 of them.
This time, TMC scored a zero.
The 49 seats are spread across both north and south Bengal, from Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri in the north to Nadia, Hooghly, Jhargram, Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapore in the south.
Together, they became the clearest measure of how decisively Hindu voters had moved, admits a write up in 'The Telegraph' -- which has a notorious track record of mocking Hindus and opposing Narendra Modi.
Just to give an example, in 2016 when Smriti Irani made a spirited reply to the debate of a suicide of a student leader in Hyderabad, its headline screamed 'Aunty India'.
The Hindu consolidation was so powerful that the BJP could pick up 40 of the total 54 assembly seats in North Bengal.
The Hindu consolidation in the 2026 West Bengal and Assam elections significantly drove BJP's victory, mobilising Hindu voters across castes as a unified bloc against alleged Muslim appeasement.
Fueled by RSS grassroots work and security concerns, this shift saw record high voter turnouts in both the states and eroded traditional opposition vote banks.
"The Hindu Consolidation gave us victory": Suvendu Adhikari said within three hours of the counting process on May 4.
For TMC, the number of seats in North Bengal this year dropped to 14 from 23 in 2021.
These figures have proved that north Bengal continues to be a fortress for the BJP, barring a few pockets.
The BJP had built its campaign around a pointed narrative on Bangladeshi Muslim infiltration, with home minister Amit Shah targeting Mamata’s government for allegedly sheltering Rohingya and Bangladeshi immigrants for electoral gain.
Shah also blasted Mamata for not providing land to the BSF for border fencing.
Somehow, the situations in Bangladesh after the ouster of Sheikh Hasina also had its impact in this year's polls in Bangladesh and among Bengalis and Hindu Assamese in Assam.
Thus the BJP workers credit an earlier, more sustained effort: months of protests — backed by RSS affiliates and dozens of Hindu social and religious organisations — against the persecution (brutal killings) of Hindus in Bangladesh.
Hindus in Bangladesh have been lynched, burned alive, shot dead, throat slit, in just a matter of 35 days.
Similar incidents happened in Murshidabad last year when Islamist mobs attacked Hindu homes unprovoked, the BJP West Bengal unit posted in the run up to the polls.
When the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was announced, the BJP projected it as a purge of illegal names.
It was not without good reason that warning voters that Hindus were under threat under the Mamata government, is believed to have accelerated the consolidation well before polling day.
The BJP itself was cautious in terms of numbers and perhaps did not expect so much of consolidation as well.
Amit Shah, who had boldly claimed 200-plus seats in 2021 before falling well short, was cautious this year. Suvendu Adhikari had put his estimate at 177.
But the final result: 207 seats out of 293.
The Fanta constituency will go to the polls on May 21. But every one was confident of a BJP win.
Samik Bhattacharya used to say - "Trinamool sarkar chole gechey ... chole jabey (TMC Govt has been voted out, it will be voted out)".
Against such wave; Mamata’s lip-service moves to court Hindu voters appeared comical.
She spoke about Jagannath Dham in Digha — a Rs 250-crore temple built in the likeness of the Puri shrine, which drew over 1.33 crore visitors in its first year.
She also laid foundation stones for Durga Angan in New Town and Mahakaal Mahatirtha in Siliguri. But Hindus could read through her mind.
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| As made available on social media |
West Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya gave his version of interpretation
— : “Lord Jagannath has finally thrown Mamata's corrupt rule into the Bay of Bengal.”
Analyst Tarapod Guha in Durgapur says, "The split in Muslim votes and the landslide win of the BJP have made things murkier. We have a nightmarish experience as West Bengal has emerged as the fourth Indian state after Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and Uttar Pradesh; where the perceived veto power of Muslims have vanished".
In Uttar Pradesh and Assam, the BJP has been returning to power repeatedly because the split in Muslim electorate continues. In fact, in Assam (close to Bengal); the BJP scored a hat-trick winning as many as 82 seats in the 126-member assembly.
The polarisation of Indian voters between the Congress and the BJP also stands exposed in Assam.
The Congress of Rahul Gandhi won 19 seats in Assam and to the surprise of many 18 of them are Muslims.
Mamata Banerjee was immensely popular amongst Muslims. But the election outcome does not reflect that.
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