Five months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi invoked the Ganga's westward flow as a metaphor for BJP's political ambitions, the saffron party is set to sweep West Bengal, dethroning Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress after 15 years in power.
The BJP is closing in on 200 seats, while the TMC appears headed for double digits in a result few expected to be this decisive.
Trends as of 2:15 PMThe party’s dominance spans geography and demography. North Bengal, already a BJP stronghold, has delivered again. But the real story is elsewhere, tribal votes in Medinipur, a saffron sweep in Burdwan and a significant churn in Kolkata and Howrah’s urban pockets. Even in Presidency and Malda regions, where voter deletions under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) sparked controversy, the TMC has failed to consolidate. Banerjee herself is leading in Bhabanipur by over 9,475 votes with 9 counting rounds remaining, but her party’s collapse elsewhere tells a different story.
BJP’s Bengal chief Samik Bhattacharya called this “an election of rejection,” citing teacher recruitment scams and unemployment as the drivers of anti-incumbency.
The RG Kar rape and murder case has cast a long shadow. The BJP’s campaign leaned heavily on law-and-order failures, goon culture and what it called Banerjee’s Muslim appeasement politics. The TMC fought back on Bengali identity and cultural pride, warning of Hindi imposition and a supposed threat to fish on the Bengali plate. The BJP countered by sending leaders to eat fish on camera.
In a video message to party workers, a visibly strained Banerjee urged them not to lose heart, noting that counting rounds remained. “Don’t lose hearts,” she said, a far cry from her pre-poll boast of winning 220-plus seats.