NDA’s success in Bengal & Assam; failure in Tamil Nadu & Kerala

5 MAY 2026

The results of the 2026 Assembly elections in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry highlight several factors that have a bearing on India’s direction as a secular, democratic, federal republic.
In Assam and Puducherry, the BJP and its partners retained power, while in the other three States, incumbents were swept away in a strong current of changed popular opinion.

Assam

In Assam, for the first time, the BJP crossed the halfway mark of 64 seats on its own and, with its partners, won 101 seats in the 126-member Assembly.
For the Congress, this is its worst performance — even lower than its 1985 tally in the aftermath of the Assam Agitation.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has reinforced his position in the State through a mix of polarising communal rhetoric and redistribution schemes.

West Bengal

In West Bengal, the BJP has achieved a decisive victory through long-term planning, aided by the State’s political history, a tainted election process, and the exhaustion of the Trinamool Congress (TMC)’s politics that had run its course.
Bengal has been home to India’s national movement and to Hindutva ideas long before they spread elsewhere, and has carried a strong sense of regional identity.
The BJP, through years of meticulous organisation, converted a threshold population of the State to its totalising nationalist narrative
The TMC faces existential danger, with its founder-leader Mamata Banerjee at 71 and its cadre and voters now susceptible to pressure from the BJP.
This election was also the most tainted in India’s elections: around 27 lakh people were arbitrarily removed from the electoral rolls, and the Supreme Court of India took an unhelpful view of that grave assault on the fundamentals of democracy.
If that is the sign of things to come, it is cause for serious concern.

Tamil Nadu

In Tamil Nadu, the political start-up, the TVK, led by actor C. Joseph Vijay has made a stunning debut.
Mr. Vijay is set to become the first Chief Minister not from either of the two principal Dravidian parties since the DMK first captured power in the State — a historic rupture in Tamil politics.
While his popularity is now established, his acumen in navigating the complexities of governance and managing the relationship with the BJP and the Centre will be tested from day one.
Though the differences in vote share among the formations — the DMK-led alliance, the AIADMK-led alliance, and TVK contesting alone — were not large, a three-cornered contest and the first past the post mechanism delivered an outsized advantage to the TVK.

Kerala

In Kerala, the Congress-led UDF’s overwhelming victory is as notable as the pitiable performance of the CPI(M)-led LDF.
The LDF’s defeat belongs principally to outgoing Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who — uncharacteristically for the State and more so for the Left — had built a personality cult.
The BJP has won a historic high of three seats, but the UDF’s return, while restoring Kerala’s traditional alternation in power, could act as a speedbreaker to the BJP’s ambitions.

The DMK and the TMC have been bulwarks of Opposition politics within and outside Parliament, as demonstrated in the recent parliamentary vote on the Delimitation Bill.
With both beaten at the hustings, and buoyed by its victories in Assam and West Bengal, the BJP will feel tempted and emboldened to continue its course of unilateralism.
The defeat of the DMK and TMC sets the stage for a potential realignment of the Opposition, opening the possibility for the Congress to aggregate and galvanise social and other interest groups — and to position itself as a weightier axis of anti-BJP politics.

Opposition wipe off

The DMK and the TMC have been bulwarks of Opposition politics within and outside Parliament, as demonstrated in the recent parliamentary vote on the Delimitation Bill.
With both beaten at the hustings, and buoyed by its victories in Assam and West Bengal, the BJP will feel tempted and emboldened to continue its course of unilateralism.
The defeat of the DMK and TMC sets the stage for a potential realignment of the Opposition, opening the possibility for the Congress to aggregate and galvanise social and other interest groups — and to position itself as a weightier axis of anti-BJP politics.