Suvendu Adhikari and Mamata Banerjee (File photo)
NEW DELHI: With both the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the BJP announcing their candidate lists, the battle for Bengal has effectively begun. While the TMC has declared candidates for all 294 seats, the saffron party has so far named 144, covering roughly half the Assembly. The contest is largely being seen as a direct duel between Mamata Banerjee’s TMC and the BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The BJP is now aiming to challenge Mamata Banerjee’s over-a-decade-long rule. Its rise in the Bengali-speaking state has been striking, from near-zero presence to becoming the principal opposition and a serious contender for power.
The Modi-led campaign has consistently kept Mamata at the centre of its political attacks, targeting what remains an elusive prize—the second-largest assembly in the country — West Bengal.
2021: The BJP’s turning point
The 2021 assembly election marked a turning point. Despite projecting a landslide victory, the BJP secured 77 seats—falling short of power but registering a dramatic surge from just 3 seats earlier, and firmly establishing itself as a formidable opposition.In many ways, the 2021 election told a bigger story than Mamata Banerjee’s victory, it marked the BJP’s rise to prominence in Bengal politics.
How Bengal voted in 2021
Often called the BJP’s ‘Chanakya’, Amit Shah had confidently declared during the campaign that the party would cross the 200-mark in the 294-member assembly, coining the slogan “abki baar, 200 paar”. The results, however, told a very different story.
The BJP fell well short, not just of 200, but even of the halfway mark of 147 seats.The outcome also brought personal setbacks for several of the party’s prominent faces. Union minister Babul Supriyo, former Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta, and Lok Sabha MP Locket Chatterjee were among those who lost their seats.
Voting patterns and missed calculations
Much of the BJP’s strategy had rested on consolidating Hindu votes and gaining the support of Scheduled Caste (SC) communities, while closely watching whether Muslim voters would back the TMC. In the end, the results suggested that Muslim voters largely stood with Mamata Banerjee, while SC votes did not consolidate in the BJP’s favour as expected.
From 2019 highs of BJP to 2021 setback
Compared to its strong performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Assembly results were a setback. Back then, the BJP had won 18 out of 42 seats and led in 121 assembly segments with a vote share of 40.2%. In 2021, it secured 77 seats—44 fewer than the segments it had led in earlier and its vote share dipped slightly to 38.13%.
BJP: A decade of rapid rise
Yet, beneath the disappointment lies a remarkable story of growth. Just a decade ago, in the 2011 Assembly elections, the BJP had failed to win a single seat and managed only 4% of the vote. In 2014, it won two Lok Sabha seats with an 18% vote share. In 2016, it secured three Assembly seats with around 10% votes. From there to 77 seats and over 38% vote share in 2021 marks a dramatic rise.In the process, the BJP has replaced the Left and the Congress, who had dominated Bengal politics for decades, as the principal opposition force. While both the Left parties and the Congress drew a blank in an unprecedented outcome, smaller players like the Rashtriya Secular Majlis Party and an independent candidate managed to win a seat each.The BJP has not just gained seats; it has built an organisational base, a cadre, and a leadership structure in the state. That machinery, now firmly in place, is likely to shape its strategy for future battles, both in the Lok Sabha elections and the next assembly contest.
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The Nandigram battle
Another key takeaway for the BJP was the victory of its “giant killer” Suvendu Adhikari, who defeated Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram by a narrow margin of 1,956 votes after a fiercely contested battle.The contest had turned into a prestige fight after Mamata herself chose to challenge Adhikari on his home turf. He had gone a step further, declaring he would quit politics if he failed to defeat her by 50,000 votes. While he fell short of that ambitious claim, his eventual win, even by a slender margin proved politically significant.The defeat dealt a symbolic blow to the TMC’s larger victory and meant Mamata Banerjee would have to seek re-election to the Assembly within six months to continue as chief minister.
