Titas Mukherjee
Following BJP’s landslide victory in Bengal, senior party leader Suvendu Adhikari on Monday said the election outcome signalled a decisive shift in public mood, claiming voters had rejected what he described as “misgovernance” and corruption.
“This is the win of people, they have thrown away misgovernance, corruption, and anti-Hindu government. They have wiped them out...,” Suvendu Adhikari said, attributing the scale of the mandate to public dissatisfaction with the outgoing regime.
He further took aim at key opposition figures, suggesting their political relevance had diminished after the results. “They (opposition leaders) only speak after lose... Rahul Gandhi, Tejashwi Yadav, Mamata Banerjee are finished, Akhilesh Yadav will also be finished,” he said.
Framing the verdict as a rejection of alleged governance failures, Adhikari credited party workers and voters for delivering what he called a “clear and decisive mandate.” He also outlined key priorities going forward. “I express my gratefulness to party workers, will take them along, fulfil their expectations, will ensure women safety,” he said, adding that “the politics of appeasement will be finished.”
Addressing concerns around post-election tensions, Adhikari accused the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) of having a history of violence after polls, while asserting that the BJP would act differently. “The way TMC did post poll violence, we will not do it... There will be only legal actions...,” he said.
Referring specifically to the high-stakes Bhabanipur contest, Adhikari claimed that his support base cut across traditional party loyalties. “CPM voters voted for me in Bhabanipur. The whole Hindu community voted for me in unison. I was saying this... It was important to defeat Mamata Banerjee, what people of Bhabanipur did was required,” he said.
The BJP’s victory marks a significant political shift in West Bengal. The party won 206 seats in the 294-member Assembly, comfortably crossing the majority mark of 148 and ending the 15-year rule of the TMC. As per Election Commission figures available around midnight, the TMC secured 80 seats and was leading in two others, trailing far behind the BJP’s tally.
What initially appeared as a close contest quickly turned into a sweeping mandate, with the BJP crossing the halfway mark early in the counting process, an indication of the scale and momentum of the electoral shift. The results also carried major symbolic significance, as Mamata Banerjee was defeated in the high-profile Bhabanipur constituency by Suvendu Adhikari, reversing early trends that had indicated an advantage for the incumbent.
