​Take east: On the BJP government in West Bengal

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s victory in West Bengal has long been in the making. In power for three consecutive five-year terms, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) had been degenerating by the day while the BJP built itself up, vote by vote, aided by all the levers of power that it could exercise as the ruling party at the Centre. The party won 207 of the 294 Assembly seats; in 2021 it had 77. Suvendu Adhikari, Leader of the Opposition in the outgoing Assembly, will be the new Chief Minister. He defeated Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in her own constituency, Bhabanipur — marking the second time that he has prevailed over her, after Nandigram in 2021. Popular dissatisfaction over jobs, corruption, governance and law and order undermined the TMC, which increasingly relied on violence and coercion to keep the State under its thumb. The West Bengal teacher recruitment scam eroded public trust in the TMC, and the R.G. Kar rape and murder case was a major inflection point. Ms. Banerjee first lost control of governance — which was never complete even at the beginning — and then lost control of the narrative. In 2021, her claim to be the protector of Bengali identity against a BJP perceived as the promoter of a Hindi heartland project had worked in her favour. That regional identity politics weakened as its principal champion sank into chaos and degeneration.

The BJP’s strategy has been evolving over the years under the direct supervision of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who spent several weeks in the State through the campaign. The party expanded its capacity at the booth level across rural Bengal through a decade of sustained work, building on its strong performance in the 2019 general election and its 2021 Assembly showing. The party had its own identity politics capable of countering the TMC’s Bengali identity politics. BJP politics in the State was constructed on intense, contentious debates around citizenship, migration and Hindu consolidation — all tied to controversial administrative measures such as the tailored Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and changes to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The CAA was deployed as a mobilisation tool, particularly among Matua and other refugee communities. The BJP’s gains flowed from a consolidation of Hindu votes alongside a decisive split in the TMC’s Muslim support base. Now that the party has created history in West Bengal, the governance challenges before it cannot be overstated. The targeted assassination of a key aide of Mr. Adhikari and violence that has gripped many parts of the State, are instructive. The State needs a new vision for development and progress, but the restoration of law and order is the most urgent priority of all.