Modi’s Party Defeated in Crucial State Election

West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee won her second re-election campaign, defeating Narendra Modi’s BJP (Wikimedia Commons).

Incumbent West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) secured a re-election victory on May 2, gaining control of the state for five more years. Banerjee, who has been the state’s leader since 2011, defeated Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in what was considered a crucial election for both parties. 

As the state has a population of nearly 90 million people, winning the West Bengal election was extremely important in extending the central government’s national power, especially considering that the BJP has never governed the state. Modi and his counterparts invested a great deal of time and money into their West Bengal campaign, even ignoring the second wave of India’s COVID-19 pandemic by continuing to hold massive rallies.

The Assembly Elections were held across eight phases, which began on March 27 and concluded on April 29. The first half of the election was driven by intense rallying focused on regional issues, such as the individuality and ethnicity of Bengali culture. The TMC campaigned on the BJP’s pervasive nature, and it claimed that on entering Bengal, the party would rob the state of its identity. On the other hand, the BJP’s rhetoric focused on protecting Bengali Hindus in a state where there is a high Muslim population. 

However, the election’s second half became a televised drama amid India’s raging second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite daily new cases skyrocketing to 350,000 per day and India’s healthcare infrastructure collapsing, the BJP continued to hold packed rallies in West Bengal. The BJP’s dedicated campaigning allowed them to win 77 seats (out of 292 seats) compared to their previous total of 3 seats. However, it was nowhere near the TMC’s haul of 213 seats. 

In addition to Modi’s mismanagement of the pandemic, the BJP’s loss can be attributed to the TMC successfully splitting their target voter population: West Bengal’s Hindus. They focused on gender and class inequality, allowing them to divide what BJP saw as a homogenous Hindu population.

The election results are even more disappointing for the BJP considering that they actually fared worse than they did in the 2019 national election. Out of the 42 Lok Sabha (national parliament) seats from West Bengal, the BJP won 18, or 43 percent. However, they only managed to win 26 percent of West Bengal’s Vidhan Sabha (state parliament) seats in the recent state elections, marking a clear loss in progress in the state.

The TMC’s landslide victory is a major hiccup for the BJP’s quest in expanding its influence across India.