What does saffronisation of West Bengal mean for Dhaka?

FOR 75 years, West Bengal told itself a story: we are the land of Tagore and Vivekananda, of Bankim and Bose, of Amartya Sen and Abhijit Banerjee, of coffee house Marxists and high-minded bhadralok secularism. We are too refined for the politics of mandir and masjid. The Partition of 1947? A regrettable necessity inflicted upon us by lesser provinces. On May 4, 2026, that story died as Suvendu Adhikari beat Mamata Banerjee on her own turf, Bhabanipur, by at least 15,000 votes. The BJP walked away with over 200 of West Bengal’s 294 seats, and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) collapsed to roughly 80. The Left and the Indian National Congress remained where they have been parked since 2011: in near oblivion. The Kolkata bhadralok society has, at last, found its inner Sanatani. Partition, it turns out, was not a tragedy of misunderstanding; it was a verdict ahead of its time. This matters for Bangladesh in ways our political elites have yet to absorb. The country is now, geographically, surrounded by the saffron flag. Tripura: BJP. Assam: Himanta Biswa Sarma, who campaigned in West Bengal for Adhikari and vividly spoke of pushing individuals across the border — a phrase that does not appear in any Vienna Convention I know of. Dhaka summoned the acting Indian high commissioner on April 30 to protest remarks by the Assam CM; four days later, the BJP won West Bengal on precisely that rhetoric. In retrospect, the summons seems only to have goaded the politics it sought to restrain. So, how did the citadel fall? First, the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voters vaporised nearly nine million voters, roughly 12 percent of the electorate, with a disproportionate impact on Muslim communities. It reminds me of the Bollywood cult Gabbar Singh. Kitne aadmi the? Nine million, sardar. TMC’s most reliable bank was emptied before the first ballot was cast. Adhikari helpfully assured Indian Muslims that the SIR would target only Bangladeshi infiltrators, a cate