BJP workers jeered Abhishek Banerjee at a Kolkata counting centre as West Bengal delivered one of its sharpest political verdicts, ending Mamata Banerjee’s 15-year rule and giving the Bharatiya Janata Party its first government in the state.The chant of “chor, chor” at Sakhawat Memorial Girls School, where votes from Banerjee’s Bhabanipur constituency were being counted on Monday, captured the bitterness of a campaign shaped by corruption allegations, welfare claims, identity politics and anti-incumbency. By the end of counting, the BJP had crossed the majority mark comfortably, winning 206 seats in the 294-member Assembly, while the All India Trinamool Congress was reduced to 81. The Congress won two seats, AJSU Party two, the CPI one, and smaller parties and independents shared the rest.
Banerjee’s personal defeat in Bhabanipur to Suvendu Adhikari deepened the scale of the setback. Adhikari, once one of her closest aides before joining the BJP, had defeated her in Nandigram in 2021. His victory in her Kolkata bastion gave the BJP a symbolic prize that went beyond the arithmetic of government formation. The defeat also left Trinamool facing its most serious leadership crisis since its foundation.
The verdict reversed the political map created in 2011, when Banerjee’s street campaigns over Singur, Nandigram and land acquisition ended 34 years of Left Front rule. Fifteen years later, similar language of “poriborton” was used against her, with the BJP presenting itself as the force that could end what it called corruption, intimidation and family control within Trinamool.
The BJP’s expansion was broad rather than confined to its earlier pockets of strength. It retained much of its support in north Bengal, consolidated gains in the Jungle Mahal region and pushed deep into south Bengal, where Trinamool had once relied on dense booth networks, welfare beneficiaries and minority consolidation. The scale of the swing suggested that local anger over governance, recruitment scams, violence around elections and complaints over syndicate culture had cut into Trinamool’s social coalition.
Turnout was exceptionally high, with more than 63 million votes cast. The BJP’s campaign combined national leadership, organisational discipline and a local narrative led by Adhikari, Dilip Ghosh and Samik Bhattacharya. Prime Minister Narendra Modi framed the result as a mandate for constitutional democracy and development, while BJP leaders argued that Bengal had rejected fear-based politics.
Trinamool leaders disputed the verdict’s legitimacy, alleging irregularities linked to the voter roll revision and delays in counting trends. Banerjee described the outcome as tainted and accused the BJP of using state power to influence the contest. The BJP rejected the charge, saying the scale of the mandate left no room for such claims. The Election Commission of India’s published trends and results showed the BJP well past the 148-seat majority threshold.
The campaign had been fought against the backdrop of deep polarisation. Trinamool relied on its welfare schemes, especially cash support for women, rural benefits and subsidies, while warning that a BJP government would threaten Bengal’s cultural identity and social balance. The BJP countered with allegations of corruption in teacher recruitment, misuse of police power, political violence and appeasement politics.
A split in minority voting patterns also appears to have hurt Trinamool in several constituencies. The party had counted on Muslim voters as a reliable bloc, but smaller parties, independents and local dissatisfaction reduced its margins in some seats. At the same time, Hindu consolidation behind the BJP proved stronger than in 2021, when Trinamool had successfully turned the contest into a referendum on Bengali pride.
The defeat of several Trinamool ministers underlined the collapse of the ruling party’s administrative grip. What had once been its biggest strength — an extensive local network stretching from panchayats to municipalities — became a liability in areas where voters associated local leaders with coercion, cut-money allegations and access-based welfare delivery.