New Delhi/Kolkata/Chennai | The BJP is set to form its first government in West Bengal with a landslide victory in the state polls as the Election Commission's (EC) trends on Monday showed that the party has gone past the 200-mark in combined wins and leads in the 294-member Assembly.
The saffron party is also set to retain Assam for a third term, while the latest electoral cycle also saw a spectacular debut in Tamil Nadu by actor-politician Vijay's TVK with 107 wins and leads out of 234 seats to emerge as the single-largest party, a wipeout of the Left as it tasted defeat in its last bastion of a Kerala, and a solitary win there for the Congress, which has been battling diminishing electoral returns.
Three incumbent chief ministers -- Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), M K Stalin (Tamil Nadu) and Pinarayi Vijayan (Kerala) -- are on their way out, with Banerjee also losing the poll battle against BJP's Suvendu Adhikari in the Bhabanipur Assembly seat in Kolkata.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) stellar showing in the West Bengal polls during a grand victory celebration at the party headquarters in New Delhi, both Banerjee and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged that the mandate was stolen.
As votes were counted, the EC's trends showed a landslide victory for the BJP with 206 combined wins and leads out of 293 seats in West Bengal, with the incumbent TMC left reeling at just 81. Re-polling has been ordered in one constituency in the state.
Modi hailed the verdict as a mandate for the politics of performance.
"Our mantra is nagarik devo bhava (citizens are god). We are dedicated to serving the people. That is why the people have shown their faith in the BJP. They know the BJP is synonymous with good governance, whether it is state government or civic elections as you saw the party winning its highest ever vote share in the recent Gujarat local body polls," he said.
Meanwhile, outgoing West Bengal Chief Minister Banerjee alleged that the mandate in more than 100 seats was "looted".
"We will bounce back," the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo said while walking out of the counting centre at the Bhabanipur constituency.
A visibly-distraught Banerjee told reporters that the BJP's victory was "immoral".
"They have looted more than 100 seats," she alleged.
Banerjee found an ally in Gandhi, who too alleged that the mandate in Assam and West Bengal was "stolen".
In a post on X, the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha said: "Assam and Bengal are clear cases of the election being stolen by the BJP with the support of the EC. We agree with Mamata ji. More than 100 seats were stolen in Bengal."
"We have seen this playbook before: Madhya Pradesh. Haryana. Maharashtra. Lok Sabha 2024 etc.," he said.
"Chunav chori, sanstha chori -- ab aur chara hi kya hai! (Election theft, institutional theft -- what is the option now)," Gandhi added in Hindi.
Addressing the gathering at the BJP headquarters, Modi, clad in a traditional Bengali dhoti-kurta, expressed gratitude to the karyakartas (party workers) and voters of West Bengal, Assam as well as Puducherry, assured the people of Tamil Nadu and Kerala that the saffron party would strive to serve them equally, and took a dig at old foe Congress, saying he is sure that the people of Kerala would teach the grand old party a lesson in the next election.
As regional powerhouse TMC stared at a bleak future with its citadel breached, the prime minister paid glowing tributes to RSS ideologue Syama Prasad Mookerjee for fighting to keep West Bengal in India and said it was fitting that in the 150th year of Vande Mataram, the state witnessed "poriborton" (political change), emphasising that the reign of fear is over.
"Those like Dr Mookerjee, who believe in rashtra sarvopari (nation above all), are always ready to sacrifice their lives for the country. His vision for Bengal has come true today on May 4, 2026, as the people of the state have given us the opportunity to serve.
"For the first time in Bengal, the election was conducted completely peacefully, with not a single person losing their life," Modi said, referring to the role played by security forces in ensuring incident-free polls.
More than 2.5 lakh personnel of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), along with state police, were deployed, with the TMC and BJP engaging in a showdown outside several strongrooms where electronic voting machines (EVMs) were stored in the run-up to the counting.
In Assam, where the election was a hot-headed affair too, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma led the BJP to another straight victory, bagging 82 of the 126 seats, leaving the Congress far behind at 19. State Congress chief Gaurav Gogoi faced his first electoral defeat in Jorhat.
"Hat-Trick with a century!" a jubilant Sarma said in a post on X and thanked the people of Assam.
The cynosure of Elections 2026, however, was West Bengal, where the TMC was eyeing a fourth straight term.
"The Lotus blooms in West Bengal! The 2026 West Bengal Assembly Elections will be remembered forever. People's power has prevailed and BJP's politics of good governance has triumphed," Modi said on X before the victory speech at the party headquarters.
As the counting progressed, power for the TMC seemed to be pulling away -- further and further. The state's political landscape was changing, with the BJP, its campaign spearheaded by Union Home Minister Amit Shah with Modi as its lodestar, pushing ahead in the border, tribal and industrial regions, while the TMC held ground in parts of Kolkata and select rural strongholds.
The numbers, pollsters said, clearly indicated that it was all over for the tough talking Banerjee and another victory for Brand Modi.
A defiant Banerjee disagreed even as trends showed she was trailing behind Adhikari in Bhabanipur.
"A false narrative is being spread," she alleged in a video message.
The chief minister accused the EC of "not declaring results or leads" in areas where the TMC was ahead.
"This is a game plan by the EC and the BJP as it (the poll panel) is not declaring results or leads in areas where we are leading," she said.
Banerjee also alleged irregularities in the counting process at some locations.
"In several places, counting has been stopped after the first two to three rounds. In Kalyani, we have caught seven machines with severe anomalies," she claimed.
"I appeal to everyone that neither TMC candidates nor counting agents should abandon the counting centres," she added.
It was a volatile election campaign with issues of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list, electoral rigging and polarisation dominating the discourse.
If West Bengal was one headline of Elections 2026, the other was superstar Vijay, who defied the odds and the taint of a stampede during his rally in Karur in September 2025, in which 41 people were killed. That was clearly in the past as his party broke the bipolar cycle of Dravidian politics in Tamil Nadu.
Congratulating Vijay, Gandhi said, "The mandate reflects the rising voice of the youth, which cannot and will not be ignored."
The ruling DMK that had started the morning at the third position, was at 60 and the AIADMK at 47.
The choice, it appeared, was clear. Joseph Vijay Chandrasekhar appeared set to join the pantheon of MGR and Jayalalithaa as celluloid stars who made it big in the political firmament. The star of hit films, such as "Mersal" and "Leo", went into the campaign with a list of lofty poll promises, including 8 gm of gold, worth about Rs 1.12 lakh, for marriage. Vijay's assurances in the party manifesto also included a monthly assistance of Rs 2,500 for women aged below 60 years and six free cooking-gas cylinders per family a year.
With the Kerala win in her party's pocket, Congress general secretary and Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra thanked the people of the southern state for their overwhelming support.
"To all my brothers and sisters in Keralam, thank you for your faith and for your overwhelming support. The trust you have placed in us will be the UDF's guiding force as we work hard towards building a better future for each one of you," she said.
In Puducherry, the All India NR Congress had won or was ahead in 12 of the 30 seats. The DMK stood at five and the BJP at four. The TVK made its presence felt with two seats.
