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Background -
On the 4th of May, India witnessed multiple political tsunamis at once. If in Tamil Nadu, there was a rise of actor turned politician Jospeh Vijay Chandrashekar's TVK becoming the single largest party, in Assam there was the return with 4/5th majority in the house by a resurgent Himanta Biswa Sarma led BJP.
However, the biggest political earthquake came from West Bengal, when the BJP became just the fourth party to ever govern West Bengal. BJP defeated a 15 year TMC government of one of West Bengal's greatest politicians Mamata Banerjee in a manner no one expected.
BJP secured 206 seats to TMCs 80 seats. The reason why this earthquake is also crucial is because, West Bengal sends 42 Lok Sabha MPs every 5 years in a house of 543 which makes this election equally important in a national conext to the elections that happen in Maharashtra (48), Uttar Pradesh (80), Bihar (40) and Tamil Nadu (39).
While everyone in the exit and opinion polls were predicting a close BJP government, however, no one could predict the extent of wave which would wipe out TMC even in its stronghold areas like South 24 Parganas.
The biggest news from this defeat was also that, Mamata Banerjee was trounced by almost 15,000 votes in her home seat of Bhawanipore which she has represented at least 7 times in both national and regional levels. With this feat, Mamata Banerjee joined a list of ex CMs in West Bengal who lost both in the assembly elections and as well as in their own constituency. This legendary feat was given to the politician by the people of West Bengal, who joined the likes of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Ajoy Mukherjee, Siddharth Shankar Ray & Prafulla Chandra Ghosh. The list of Chief Ministers in West Bengal can be accessed here.
WB has been governed only by 3 parties till date, with super - long tenures like Congress for 20 years, CPM for 35 years and TMC for 15 years. This shows, that though there is anti incumbency, but, Bengali electorate usually changes its option only when the issues are really serious. This is a double edged sword as it makes the policy making predictable but on the other hand, it can create a political culture of intimidation & violence which can destroy the state's socio - economic fabric. While its interesting to see what BJP brings to the table, its equally important to analyse the surprise but maybe not a shock victory of the BJP in West Bengal.
Introduction -
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The fact that, she has now lost her second straight electoral contest to her protege turned arch rival, Suvendu Adhikari after Nandigram 2021, which makes this election result even more humiliating. In fact both Suvendu Adhikari and Mamata Banerjee were ministers in the same government and had led the BUPEC andolan in Nandigram which defeated the then invincible Left Front government in 2011.
The kind of politics, practiced in West Bengal over the years is primarily the reason, why Mamata Banerjee is still in shock over what transpired in the state. The voter turnout in West Bengal was almost of 92% and even in areas of Kolkata region which saw very low voting had a turnout of almost 87%.
The fact that, the whole of West Bengal, saw 1 political violence related deaths during the day of polling, is a big feat that the Election Commission of India has achieved. Because, in the Panchayat elections of 2018 and 2023, 50+ official deaths were reported, while, in 2021 painful deaths like that of Avijit Sarkar happened in the brutal post poll violence that had taken social media by storm. The deployment of almost 2500 CRPF, CAPF, BSF companies helped maintain peace during the voting day.
The fact that the whole election of Falta assembly segment was cancelled, because of allegations of taping the opposition party symbols and smearing of Itar on symbols of BJP, CPM etc. shows what kind of politics is practiced in this particular state. Furthermore, in the 2 panchayat elections of 2018 and 2023, TMC won 30% seats uncontentested, which speaks volumes of what kind of politics happens in the villages of the state. A beautiful ORF based research paper over political violence in West Bengal speaks volumes about this issue which is quite unique to WB.
However its critical to perform solid data analysis the meso level issues and the general issues of the state, which has led to this kind of a political earthquake. To imagine, that the BJP came from having 3 MLAs in 2016 to sweeping the state with a brute majority of 206 in 2021, is the most surprising rise of any party in a major state in India, calls for some genuine data analysis over lazy social media commentary which has credited the whole election to PM Narendra Modi eating Jhalmuri in Jhargram.
This is even interesting because, the BJP just had won a dozen seats in West Bengal in 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Before we proceed its critical to understand how TMC had won in 2021 election, which can be found here. BJP to its credit in West Bengal had a proper startegy in place for years of being different and indulged into proper cadre building activities and this is the reason why the party ended up rising from some 10% vote share in 2016 to 46% vote share in 2026. The reality is that, you can become number 2 to number 1 easily, but coming upto the number 2 position is a painstaking effort.
Pan state issues -
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Just like every other state in India, faces anti incumbency against sitting MLAs, ministers over non delivery of some promises, the same applies equally in the context of West Bengal. However, there were some issues in West Bengal which made it unique just like any other state.The anti incumbency is always there both against the centre and the state government, but which anti incubency is heavy over the another one depends upon election campaign, candidates and the issues that are prevalant at that point of time. Like in 2021, the major central issue was off covid mishandling in the second wave, heatwave issues amongst others.
This was a major issue highlighted during the electoral campaigns by TMC. This time the major issue was of gas price hike due to the Strait of Hormuz closure, to TMCs credit, women's reservation bill, Mamata Banerjee did rise that issue via a protest, but the state level anti incumbency and the national happenings like Raghav Chaddha joining BJP or the nail biting thrillers in IPL,completely killed those news from the news cycle. This is why, during the whole of election campaign, TMC was the only party, which bore the brunt of the extremely high anti incumbency that was prevalent.
These happenings gave BJP an opportunity to highlight the state level anti incumbency issues, which any party waiting for elections will always do.
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The biggest issue was of law and order handling. For non social science students, law & order maintainence by the state police includes everything - violence against women, communal riots, political violence, actions against illegal immigration, actions against betting rackets, actions against illegal land encroachment, action against corruption, abettment to suicide, murder, casteist or racist attacks, intimidation and loot etc.
This is a major reason why not only India but the whole world has different criminal laws like its IPC & BNS in the case of India. This is an issue which will impact every citizen whether they are an ISRO scientist or an econometrician or a big businessman.
Now, let it be any government in the world, no government can ever predict how a human being can behave criminally, however how well do they keep the criminal elements in control, how well can the police keep the fear of law in the minds of people is the most crucial issue that decides how well can the country function. Though, its understandable that controlling crimes is not in the hand of the government, but their actions post that and the solid implementation of law before that decides how much impact can it create.
Since, law and order is a state subject as per the Indian constitution, hence, any mishandling of this issue will lead to inevitable political backlash, because thats how Indian law functions. Bureaucrats are known to be influenced by the state governments is a well known fact, which has many takers. A beautiful book over policing related issues has been authored by former IPS officer K. Annamalai.
In the context of West Bengal, law and order was a major state level electoral issue and a good case study can be of the 2 most common issues in India - Violence against women and communal riots, can be found in the section that starts after this.
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The second major issue was economy related. Now, West Bengal's economic profile is very interesting. Though it should ideally warrant another round of article which will come out soon. However, some development related facts about West Bengal which may have impacted the electoral outcome in the state.
Some facts like - WB has the highest number of beggars, constantly massive brain drain in form of emigration to other Indian states, the much disliked cut money culture, lack of industrialisation, lack of government hiring, a debt covering 38% of State's GDP, low ranking on the HDI index and low ranking on the Export Competitiveness Index (ECI) of NITI Aayog, all directly impacting people's lives really multiplied the anti incumbency.
To add on, cases like the coal smuggling scam, SSC recuritment scam, non implementation of the 7th pay commission for government employees (DA), which allegedly had direct involvment of TMCs top brass just added on to the misery of anti incumbency arising due to economic reasons. Additionally, issues such as
While TMC did try to undercut this by providing cash transfer schemes like Rupashree, Kanyashree , Yuva Sathi & Lakshmi Bhandar to women who gave TMC a super strong majority in 2021, that was countered by BJP with its own gurantee card of providing 3500 rupees to women.
To add on, BJP deployed its women leaders like Smriti Irani & Rekha Gupta which completely sidelined the narrative of TMCs welfare schemes. This just made the election even more about the perceieved misgovernance of TMC, from where BJP directly benefitted.
Crimes related issues analysis with examples-
Violence against women
One of the major state level issues in West Bengal was violence against women is normally a big issue in every state election in India due to multiple socio - economic factors on which a lot has been written, however, the scale of this issue was huge in the context of West Bengal. West Bengal in August 2024 was rocked by the RG Kar medical student rape case also called as the "Abhaya case" which saw absolute mishandling from the then TMC government. The visuals of striking doctors being beaten up by volunteers or goondas linked to TMC ruined the image of the party in the state. Apart from the Abhaya case, the alleged involvement of TMC leaders in cases like:- Kasba medical college, Sandheskhali rape case, Burdwan rape case added fuel to a forestfire.
Furthermore, some of the not so "civilised" comments made by TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and the backlash it recieved from people in general from social media made this issue into probably the biggest issue in the state. Additionally, statistics like West Bengal frequently appearing amongst the top-5 states in violence against women including acid attacks as per the NCRB database pointed that the issue had some resonance in the ground level. BJPs move of inducting now Panihati MLA Ratna Debnath and Hanskali MLA Rekha Patra further magnified the issue. This looks even more bad on the part of TMC, as during the uprootment of the Left Front, there was the much public brutal Tapasi rape case which completely changed the directions of political wind in West Bengal, back then.
Finally, BJP also visibly sidelined its former state president Dilip Ghosh from the campaign completely, to avoid any sort of negative backlash they may recieve due to his ultra aggressive anti Mamata comments or to avoid confusion amongst the rank and file on who would become CM. Instead, keeping the election focused onto TMC, BJP drifted away from the traps that they ended up falling into in 2021.
This was also visible in the post poll analysis, just for context as in 2021, it was the womenfolk across WB which had delivered 213 seats for Mamata Banerjee. This time, the women voters turned away and that extra votes that TMC always used to get in the state completely diminished in value and TMC ended up losing in a big way, even in seats where they were really strong enough to win.
Vicious Cycle Of Polarisation - Counter Polarisation
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Second issue was certainly the issue of polarisation. West Bengal has been one state in India, which has a high presence of people from the Muslim community. In fact West Bengal has had a very interesting history on how it was formed over religious identity. TMC used to be the prime benefactor of the muslim votes polarisation, which helped it to maintain electoral dominance in all levels.
Now though, this issue of polarisation in India is not new due to multiple reasons socio - politically - culturally, however, how well is the state police & state government handling such issues decides whether its a big issue or not for electoral purposes.
For example, in the state of Gujarat or TN which has substantial amount of population for both communities, communal riots is not anywhere close to being a deciding factor in the state elections post that 1 election of 2007.
However, this issue was never milked for political benefits successfully in the state's history by any political party & though BJP did try to milk the tensions between the 2 communities in 2021Vidhan Sabha elections and 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it had failed massively where the party faced humiliating setbacks.
However, this underlying issue became a major issue in this election, due to the mistakes that TMC committed throughout the election campaign and maybe during its 5 year rule. The percieved mishandling of the TMC over - Murshidabad violence, unfencing of the porous 600 km border between India & Bangladesh while the rest of eastern India including Assam has fenced its border,violence emanating from anti Israel protests in areas of Santargachi, Maldha riots, Hooghly riots, controversial rebuilding bid of Babri Masjid in Murshidabad by ex TMC MLA Huamyun Kabir and the frequently made contoversial statements by TMCs top brass leaders like Mamata Banerjee, Abhishek Banerjee, Firhad Hakim amongst others, ended up polarising the Hindu community against the TMC furthermore.
The heavy presence of RSS in West Bengal already had provided quite a bit of ammunition for the BJP to go against the TMC over this issue. All of this in addition to the brutal murders of religious minorities in Bangladesh, which were horrifying to see on social media, ended up polarising the Hindus even more.
Furthermore, BJPs campaign centered around law & order issues for protection of Bengali identity, was much stronger than TMCs campaign which was looking distracted over adminsitrative & legal issues like ED raids on IPAC or the SIR issue which was constantly raised by them. By the time, damage control could have been done, the election was already over.
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Additionally, TMCs social media team was constantly attacking & sometimes making sensational allegations against the police officers or central forces deployed for peaceful conduct of the elections, which again went against them in this election as it ended up furthermore, antagonising the normal voters in the state. Whether they were right or wrong in the issues is trivial in the election campaign as politics depends on perception more than anything.
Furthermore, TMCs number 2, Abhishek Banerjee's statement about the Union Home Minister staying back in Kolkata on May 4 post results, added on to the anti incumbency that the average voter was facing, due to all the above reasons.
All of these mistakes, branded TMC as a party that follows hooliganism, which had its selling on all over the social media. Even Congress & Left not allying with TMC and instead attacking them over these 2 issues as per their ideological positions,weakened TMC even more.
This whole area of law and order, where the TMC failed spectularly in governance handed an issue on the platter to a political party like BJP which did politics accordingly.The BJP capitalised on this pre existing issue by deploying its controversial star campaigners like Yogi Adityanath & Himanta Biswa Sarma to campaign against the TMC over these super-contentious issues.
This issue was already pre existing but all the above factors merged with some bad governance, ended up balooning the anti incumbency against TMC even more.
However, just like every region in India has its own unique brand of politics playing out, the same applies even in West Bengal which has regions like Jangalmahal, North Bengal, Burdwan, Matua belt, Malda - Murshidabad belt, N24 Parganas, S24 Parganas centric issues and KMC region issues.
All these issues played out in different ways than expected, to the overall issues that were impacting the state election. In fact, BJP was leading in 95 seats in 2024 Lok Sabha elections as compared to the 77 seats they had won. This should have ideally set off alarm bells within TMC, but probably they were overconfident as they had an increase of 6 lok sabha seats from 23 to 29.
Regiocentric issues
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Jangalamahal is that region of West Bengal, which has 8 lok sabha segments namely - Purulia, Bankura, Bishnupur, Jhargram, Medinipur, Tamluk, Kanthi & Ghatal. TMC in the 2024 Lok sabha election had won from Bankura, Jhargram, Medinipur & Ghatal.
This area was completely balanced between the TMC & BJP till March 2026. In fact, BJP was able to barely win in Bishnupur by a razor thin margin of 5500 votes and even in Tamluk,which comes under the influence of BJPs probable CM elect Suvendu Adhikari, BJPs Justice Abhijit Gangophadyay won with a slim margin 78000 votes. So, this area was completely competitive between the 2 parties. However, the election result literally surprised everyone. BJP trounced TMC by winning 54 out of 56 seats in this region.
In the screenshot, Medinipur division is to be considered the same as Jangamahal. In Jangalmahal, the population of tribals, Kurmis and other upper castes in Hindus is very high. For context, in 2021, TMC won around 38/56 seats in this region. The screenshot is attached below. Additionally, TMC led in almost 35 seats in this belt in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The results in this region seem to be driven by multiple factors. BJPs probable CM face and ex TMC strongman minister Suvendu Adhikari, contesting from Nandigram & Bhawanipore a feat that BJP does not give any turnacoat seemed to have play a role in dismantling this otherwise competitive region. Additionally, Suvendu Adhikari's surprise victory over Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram 2021, further boosted his credentials as a street fighting politician who had raised right issues as the LoP in WBLA.
The allegedly TMC sponsored attacks of all kind on him, gave him even more credibility, which was a massive mistake for TMC and from a BJP lens, it was a big plus point as they got a CM candidate whom they can portray as taking on Mamata Banerjee.
In the last election, the major issue that hurted BJP was that of not having anyone even as a de facto candidate, that sent a completely confused message between a state cadre which was for the first time fighting an election, with the aim of forming the government.
The voters in this region, seeing one of their own local leader, contesting from 2 places and taking on a fiesty chief minister like Mamata Banerjee must have felt that, they may have a person from their region as the CM after Ajoy Mukherjee, which drove this massive sentiment for them.
Having a CM from your region helps bring more development to that region, for example, in the times of united AP, N.Chandrababu Naidu's TDP used to win many seats as he used to bring in many development schemes to that region.
Furthermore, BJP had pre existing many MLAs in this region, which may drove them to invest their resources in this anti incumbency election, these seats were in phase-1 which also made sure that they were immune from any anti incumbency that may rise against Narendra Modi led central government, which was held during the second wave of coronavirus pandemic.
Additionally, BJP was able to get in the support of Adivasi Kudmi Samaj which has been demanding ST status for Kurmi community in Jharkhand & West Bengal.The BJPs failure to address this issue, led them to lose a lot of seats in Jharkhand Vidhan sabha elections due to the presence of JKLM was addressed smartly by them. BJP inducted Biswajit Mahato (son of the AKS leader) and gave him the ticket from Joypur, which further pulled Kurmis into its side.
On the other hand, TMCs percieved disrespect of President Droupadi Murmu for a political event related to tribals, was further smartly used by BJP who deployed its tribal leaders in this area to further push the anti tribal sentiment that TMC already had from before.
Though, TMC tried to perform a damage control by calling in JMMs Kalpana Soren for campaign, but the absence of former Naxal leader turned TMC functionary Chatradhar Mahato due to his ongoing NIA jail term for 4 years, further dented TMCs groundwork in this belt. All of these factors, compounded by those 2 state level reasons, further dented TMC very badly here.
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Burdwan region - The other region in this sub -section namely the Burdwan region has 3 LS seats - Asansol, Bardhamman Durgapur and Purba Bardhamman.In 2024, BJP lost all these 3 seats namely - Asansol,Burdwan Durgapur & Purba Bardhamman. Asansol & Burdwan - Durgapur were the only LS seats that had BJP MPs that too with breaks. In Burdwan, BJP just had 1 MP and in Asansol, Babul Supriyo has been the MP twice. Even Babul Supriyo had defected to TMC post 2021 results, which had dented BJP in this region as they had also lost the byelections very badly.
In 2021, TMC had swept this whole region and BJP just had 1 MLA out of a possible 21, whereas this time BJP has 27 MLAs from this region. This region at once upon a time was called as the "Industrial backbone of India" and the percieved lack of industrialisation in West Bengal due to the rampant unemployment in this area.
Additionally to the state having a poor economic fundamental of low industrial contribution, further boosted BJPs chances. BJPs promise of Sonar Bangla economically, had its maximum impact in this region.
To add on, this region has its border with Bihar & Jharkhand, where due to national political compulsions, a lot of central projects have been allocated here and this development oriented approach helped BJP further in this belt.
Even the potato farmers issue which was raised by BJP from time and time again, really had its takers as the TMC failed to counter these allegations effectively and even if they did, it was again too little, too late.
North Bengal centric issues -
AI Generated
North Bengal is an interesting phenomenon in the state of West Bengal. This area has elected BJP MP Jaswant Singh from Darjeeling, even in 2004 when BJP used to be in an alliance with TMC. North Bengal geographically has chicken's neck coridoor, which is exceptionally critical for national security. Its the only coridoor which connects mainland India to North East India. Its here that the issue of illegal immigration of Bangladeshis has the highest resonance.
Now, I wont get into whether the issue is right or not as my opinion is irrelevant. This was a big issue though.
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Presidency Region Issues -
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If the whole West Bengal results was a shocker, what happened in the Presidency region and in the other 26 Lok Sabha seats was like a cruel shock delivered to the TMC by the voters. Now, while the whole of Presidency region can be called as South Bengal, however this region is divided into Murshidabad belt, N24 Parganas, S24 Parganas, KMC belt and Birbhum - Burdwan belt.
Murshidabad belt is one region which is demographically the most challenging region of West Bengal. This region has a Muslim minority population of almost 70%. This area has 3 Lok Sabha seats with 21 Vidhan Sabha segments. BJPs position in this region is so bad that, they literally finished third in the lok sabha seats of Berhampore, Jangipur & Murshidabad.
Their position in 2021 was such that, they won only 2 out of 21 seats in this region. What happened here is a combination of factors which further dented TMC as they won only 9 seats while BJP won 8 seats in this region, the other 4 were won by Left, AIMIM, Congress & the Aam Janata Unnayan Party respectively.
It seems that the intense competition amongst everyone helped BJP to increase its tally on the back of other issues discussed previously. BJP benefitted from the FPTP system nicely, an example of which is the Karimpur seat, where BJP won with a 10,000 vote margin as the CPM, Congress & AJUP candidates all polled more than 5000 votes which was enough to decide the winner.
This was not the case the last time,where TMC won with more than 23,000 votes while number 3 party CPM in that case had polled just 17,000 votes.This 1 result, shows that even the Muslim voters were visibly frustrated by the politics of TMC.
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BJP even in 2024, which was their worst election in the state, managed to win 2 of these seats here. In the 2021 election, these 21 seats had seen, TMC had won 12 seats and BJP had won 9, which meant that even after that kind of an election which had a Mamata wave with everything going into her favour, BJP was organisationally strong in this region.
Here the Bangladesh issue, along with the demand of being included in CAA process being fulfilled by BJP leadership in addition to all the above reasons, completely flipped this region into their favor. Here, BJP this time won around 17 off the 21 seats. TMC despite having the president of the All India Matua Mahasangha, Mamata Bala Thakur was unable to fulfill this crucial demand ,which led to this kind of a result here.
Kolkata and The 24 Parganas belt -
If the other regions had some sort of political organisation available, what happened in this region is nothing short of a political earthquake. This whole area of Kolkata and the 24 Parganas belt has 17 LS seats namely - Birbhum, Bolpur, Hooghly, Howrah, Serampore, Arambagh, Kolkata North, Kolkata South, Jadavpur, Dum Dum, Barasat, Barrackpore, Basirhat, Diamond Harbour, Uluberia, Jayanagar & Mathurapur.
In the 2024 election, TMC had won each and every single seat here. BJP in fact amongst these 17 lok sabha seats, had won just 2 seats (Hooghly and Barrackpore) that too once only in 2019 which was essentially the political peak of PM Narendra Modi. BJP literally fielded some of their Rajya Sabha members like Rupa Ganguly to contest here which shows that maybe, even BJP was under confident of performing well in this reason.
These facts itself show that BJPs organisation in this region was technically exceptionally weak and even TMCs campaign of BJP being anti Bengali impacts this area the highest as this is where the Bengali "bhadralok" resides.
That issue as pointed out before, was one of the major reason why TMC had such a big mandate in the 2021 election. BJP to their credit, did point out to the fish eating issue as a fishermen development related issue, but still in a real world scenario, BJP should not have benefitted the way it did. Hence, it shows that there was too much anti incumbency that resulted in that kind of a verdict.
The BJP had done just 3 things, in this election of making their party look like a much more educated & approachable to the normal Bengali middle class person which were - Samik Bhattacharjee as the state president, giving the mother of RG Kar Medical rape case & Sandeshkhali victim tickets in actually winnable seats, which softended their image amongst Bengali middle class & just improving somewhere in this region.
Also, TMCs too much negative politics like fielding the same lawyer as a Rajya Sabha MP who was representing the rapists in the RG Kar Medical case in Supreme Court, was also a prime reason why the people could see behind the kind of political maneouvering that was being attempted by them. Whether that was right or wrong was a separate thing, but elections are won on perception than reality.
However, BJPs exceptional performance, from winning single digit seats here to winning almost winning 60 seats shows that the problem was probably more from the TMC side. People may point out to the ISF factor, but even that shows, that the Muslim population also had a high amount of anti incumbency balloning against TMC.
This area is known as TMCs citadel as many of these seats have seen TMC MPs and MLAs even during the peak rule of much stronger Left Front. In fact, the whole politics of Mamata Banerjee started from this particular belt only. TMC had almost around 107 MLAs out of a possible 119 from this whole region and this time around, that tally has come crashing down to 46 seats.
It means that had this region not given TMC these seats, they would have probably ended up losing even more badly in this election. That shows, how much anti incumbency was TMC really battling up in this election, due to all of the above factors mentioned above.
Therefore, this whole election was much more than a Modi wave election or maybe, as people are saying that, it was a vote against TMC instead for a vote for BJP. TMCs organisational strength in this belt was a major reason why, even opinion polls & exit polls were giving 100+ seats to West Bengal. However,WB stayed true to its character of voting someone out of power,when they gave them less than 75 seats, which has been the trend and the only election cycle that has broken that trend twice is of BJP once in 2021 when they had 77 seats and TMC now when they have 80 seats.
Conclusion -
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To conclude, this West Bengal election just like any other election. It was just that there was too much anti incumbency that was piling up over 15 years tenure of Mamata Banerjee primarily over the governance related issues. However, all those issues were also very much prevalent in the last election cycle of 2021 which also had Cyclone Amphan as a major issue at a time when PM Narendra Modi's populairty was at its peak, but Mamata Banerjee losing so badly even in her own constituency which has never even seen a BJP candidate finish in a photo finish kind of a race, shows how bad and distracted the campaign of TMC was. To their credit, TMC did do a decent job in catching up the election narrative, but it was too little and most likely very late.
This is also an opportunity to prove that the BJP can change the political culture of West Bengal by bringing in development oriented measures which can still help them massively as it would help them to really remove the hooligan elements who have infiltrated probably each and every section of West Bengal's society. Development & economic growth policies can also help in reducing the extent of political mafiaism that exists in the state.
They need to develop it otherwise, the brain drain which is contiuing in such a big number, will forever go on and the social media warriors of all political parties, need to keep some patience because, what is being inherited is a state - party society with some genuinely real issues which is a central feature of all communist governments in the world.
This is for the first time in 50 years, that West Bengal has the same party governing in both state and centre, which is really a golden opportunity for BJP to work on at least the economic and law - order issues which are so deeply prevalant in the state.Some good governance, like how they have done in states like Assam or even Maharashtra can really help this state to come out of its rut for a long time. WB is that one state in India, which has been governed only by a grand total of 3 parties till date, which makes the state even more politically predictable.
Finally, BJP should not treat this mandate as their whole only success as how social media will make them believe, as this is a mandate by people to really have "poriborton" as they have promised, because people of WB had gifted the mandate to the TMC on the same "Maa - Maati - Manush" issue and what ended up was a very bad state of affairs.
The state which gave India legends like Swami Vivekanada, Matungini Hazra, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee amongst others, deserves to genuinely see some development as its unfathomable that a state that has given 2 Nobel prize economists cannot even spend 25% of its budget on capital expenditure. The capital expenditure part is covered in the previous article on Assam. Also, as a football fan, as an Indian we hope that, if in the next time any footballing superstar visits India, they must be completely feel welcomed & no city in the country should witness chairs being hurled once the superstar has left.
