I need to eat crow. I predicted that Mamata Banerjee would win in West Bengal despite exit polls saying otherwise. But BJP won by a landslide, with 206 seats to TMC's 81. Banerjee herself lost by over 15,000 votes. BJP's consolidation of the Hindu vote was stunning, overwhelming all other political currents. Hindutva rules India, like it or not.
BJP has now captured the whole of eastern India. For long, strong local leaders governed in the east - Nitish Kumar in Bihar, Naveen Patnaik in Odisha, and Banerjee in West Bengal. All three are gone now, replaced by BJP.
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BJP was part of the coalition re-elected to power in Puducherry. It won 3 seats for the first time in Kerala. No wonder PM Modi is smiling.
Banerjee came to power in Bengal in 2011 promising 'poriborton', or change. After 15 yrs of her government, Modi says that true poriborton has come with her departure. She ousted the Left Front that had earlier governed for 30 yrs, and that was certainly a change. But she simply did not produce enough poriborton to win a fourth time. A sluggish economy and high unemployment eroded her image. Above all, she was hit by relentless BJP accusations that she was protecting illegal Muslim migrants from Bangladesh.
She increased the Lakshmir Bhandar Yojana grant by ₹500 a month before the election, to ₹1,500 for most women and ₹1,700 for SC/ST women. Clearly, freebies don't guarantee re- election. Banerjee's freebies were far smaller than those showered on women before Maharashtra and Bihar state elections. But BJP's sheer sweep suggests that Hindutva beats freebies hands down.
According to provisional figures, BJP vote share rose from 38% in 2021 to 45.5% this time, while TMC's fell from 48% to about 42%. From the state's 70-71% Hindu electorate, TMC got 28-30% of Hindu votes against BJP's 65-67%. That was a phenomenal achievement in consolidating the Hindu vote that one had not anticipated. I had estimated that other parties would get 15% of the vote. They got barely 10%, with BJP gobbling their vote share too.
Nine million voters had their names struck off in SIR of the voter's roll in the state. Many will now say that this revision affected Muslims disproportionately and helped BJP win. But TMC's Mahua Moitra had said categorically during the campaign that SIR was going to be irrelevant to the outcome. Psephologist Yogendra Yadav, a declared foe of BJP, also opined that SIR did not disproportionately go against Muslim voters.
In Tamil Nadu, film star Vijay's Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) won a spectacular victory with 107 of 234 seats, reducing DMK in government to a pathetic 60 seats. Chief minister M K Stalin lost his seat. Some compare Vijay with M G Ramachandran, Tamil Nadu's popular CM in the 70s-80s.
But MGR was a much bigger star. He was part of the Dravidian movement against brahminical rule that ousted Congress from power in 1967. That movement was led by writers, poets and film stars, who started rural libraries and employed folk theatre. It was a veritable cultural revolution never replicated by backward-caste movements in north India.
In recent decades, Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan have dabbled in politics without giving up their careers, and flopped. But Vijay has been building up TVK for a decade. His party won 115 of the 169 local body seats it contested in 2021. Vijay gave up acting 2 yrs ago to prepare for state elections, expanding his networks. That has borne fruit.
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Some view him as another Arvind Kejriwal. Remember, Kejriwal, too, came up at a time when voters were tired of traditional parties and loved a fresh face with a zeal for eliminating corruption. Kejriwal lasted a decade. Vijay looks like lasting longer.
Some others compare Vijay's rise with the Gen Z revolt in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, all of which brought fresh new faces to power. There is something to this. But in Sri Lanka, the old parties are back in power. That may not be the case in Tamil Nadu. Vijay looks like becoming a permanent feature.
In Kerala, Congress-led UDF has thrashed LDF by 102 seats to 35. Congress will now rule in three states - Kerala, Karnataka and Telangana. Despite its greatly diminished stature, it remains the leading opposition force at the national level.
In Assam, BJP-led NDA alliance won 102 of the 126 seats, a comprehensive sweep. This was aided by gerrymandering the delimitation of constituencies. That reduced the number of Muslim-majority constituencies from 35 to 23. But Hindutva would have ensured a great victory anyway. That is the story of India overall, not just Assam.
