The Battle for Bengal: Historical Volatility and Institutional Rigidity Define 2026 Election

West Bengal is a unique state in India on a count which is often not appreciated enough as political power has changed hands only once in the state since 1977. This historic shift happened in 2011 when the Trinamool Congress, led by Mamata Banerjee, ended the 34-year long rule of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M) led Left Front. Since that transition, the CPI (M) in the state has atrophied for all practical purposes, failing to win even a single constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha, the 2021 assembly, and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Throughout these cycles, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has emerged as the main opposition party. The BJP’s performance peaked in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when it trailed the TMC by just three percentage points in vote share and four seats in parliamentary constituencies won, though the contest became significantly more tilted in favour of the TMC in 2021 and 2024. As West Bengal finishes polling next week, the outcome remains uncertain until the answer is revealed on May 4.

The narrative of this election is dominated by two critical factors: the disproportionate deletion of voters in Muslim dominated districts and assembly constituencies and unprecedented sanitization measures. These measures, implemented by the Election Commission of India (ECI) rather than the BJP, include the deployment of central forces, a large-scale reshuffle of the state bureaucracy, and unheard-of security protocols such as restrictions on riding motor cycles. While debates persist regarding the ECI’s alleged partiality, the historical fact remains that elections in West Bengal have long been a violent affair. The 1972 elections were among the state's most controversial, and the CPI (M) eventually won the 1977 election as an opposition party under difficult circumstances. Later, the TMC ousted the CPI (M) amid large-scale electoral and non-electoral violence beginning with the 2006 agitation against land acquisition in Singur and Nandigram. The BJP has similarly developed into a strong force despite facing violence in the 2018 and 2023 local body polls. It is a political reality that no party can find a foothold in West Bengal without the ability to face and inflict political violence, a trait that has defined the state’s DNA for half a century.

This environment is personified by Suvendu Adhikari, the BJP’s main leader in the state and Bengal’s proverbial Nelson of the Battle of Trafalgar with a twist. Adhikari led the TMC to hegemonic status after outwitting the CPI (M) at Nandigram, yet unlike the British admiral, he survived to demand a share in power that Mamata Banerjee was unwilling to offer. While the party in power maintains a structural advantage, the political contest is not merely muscle; West Bengal is too large for the violence tail to wag the politics dog. The rise of the communists was an ideological victory backed by a radicalised peasantry, starting with the Tebhaga movement and sanctified under Operation Barga by Chief Minister Jyoti Basu in 1977. However, the task of building a status quo within a party society led to depoliticisation and degeneration. The fall of the communists was eventually catalysed by a high-risk land acquisition strategy for industrialization. Singur and Nandigram destroyed the perceived political legitimacy of the CPI (M), inflicting a shock that eliminated it as a reckoning force.

In the current era, Mamata Banerjee and Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayan have mastered the freebie route to manage political aspirations, a strategy the marginalized comrades at Alimuddin Street might now regret ignoring. The material basis of Banerjee’s popularity rests on distributing palliatives, a rearguard action to alleviate economic anxieties. Beyond these doles, the state is characterized by institutionalised thuggery and what Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya terms the franchisee politics model. In this system, local party bosses preside over rent-seeking fiefdoms in exchange for providing boots on the ground for the TMC. This operates alongside a regional exceptionalism that portrays the BJP as a non-Bengali national hegemon. The 2026 election's security environment is an attempt by the ECI to defang these local franchisees.

The final piece of the puzzle is the Muslim vote, comprising closer to 30% of the electorate and consolidated behind the TMC. This has led to intense communal polarisation, with the BJP leading among the Hindu electorate with an estimated 57% share. Allegations of pro-BJP gerrymandering have surfaced following disproportionate voter deletions in Muslim dominated parts during the unique adjudication of the SIR exercise. If the TMC wins, it will be framed as an ideological victory over institutional excesses; a BJP win will be attributed to the fairness provided by the ECI. Ultimately, West Bengal remains a state moving from a dogmatically vacuous party society to an ideologically bankrupt franchisee model, staring at a deep religious fault line. The ongoing rhetoric fails to acknowledge the fundamental problems, proving the Bengali phrase Shak Di Mach Dhaka Jaye Na: you cannot hide fish by putting spinach on it.