The BJP’s Bengal victory exposes the erosion of Indian democracy
Key takeaways
- A sweeping voter-roll revision disenfranchised millions and intensified fears that Hindutva and electoral engineering are reshaping the Indian republic.
- Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay is a Delhi based writer and journalist with a special interest in Hindu nationalistic politics.
- For the first time in history, the BJP has captured power in Bengal, winning 207 of the 293 seats declared so far and reducing the TMC to 80.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
A sweeping voter-roll revision disenfranchised millions and intensified fears that Hindutva and electoral engineering are reshaping the Indian republic.
Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay is a Delhi based writer and journalist with a special interest in Hindu nationalistic politics.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogle Add Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters celebrate after taking a lead during vote counting for the West Bengal Legislative Assembly elections, near the party head office in Kolkata on May 4, 2026 [AFP]Recent state elections in India have produced one of the most consequential political verdicts in the country’s contemporary history, especially in West Bengal (WB), a border state of more than 100 million people that has long resisted the advance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).