What contributed to lotus bloom from Himalayas to Ganges
'It is basically a lack of rule of law that the people of Bengal voted against,' says a former economist with the Indian Statistical Institute.
One of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's most-quoted lines yesterday (4 May) was that the lotus, his BJP's election symbol, had bloomed across a vast swathe of India, from Gangotri in the Himalayas, the origin of the Ganges, to Ganga Sagar, where a tributary of the river meets the Bay of Bengal.
Speaking at the party's national headquarters in Delhi soon after the Bharatiya Janata Party swept West Bengal, Modi said his party was now in power in four contiguous states: Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal.
His remarks signal how dramatically India's political map has shifted since he first became prime minister in 2014. West Bengal has finally joined the national mainstream of BJP-ruled states.
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Setting aside Congress-ruled Punjab and Himachal Pradesh and JMM-governed Jharkhand, the saffron sweep now stretches across the east, northeast and west of the country, with four southern states, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka and Kerala, still holding out.
'Everyone suffered'
At the heart of the BJP's win is the decline of the Trinamool Congress's (TMC) vote share, from 48% in 2021 to 40.8%.
The decisive shift came in the second phase of polling on 29 April, when votes were cast across 142 seats. The BJP had won just 18 of those in 2021 but secured 66 this time.
"It is basically a lack of rule of law that the people of Bengal voted against," said Abhirup Sarkar, former economist with the Indian Statistical Institute.
"Everyone suffered, especially industries and businesses, due to extortion and crime. This is the first time both Hindus and Muslims wanted to vote against the TMC."
He said the middle and upper-middle classes had been particularly angered by the TMC's governance deficit, most visibly in Kolkata, where the BJP swept seats Mamata Banerjee's party had long held.
Corruption scandals linked to chit fund schemes, illegal teacher recruitment in government-run schools and rampant cash-for-job rackets remained in sharp focus.
The TMC's victories in the 2016 and 2021 assembly elections had lulled the party into believing that graft did not matter to Bengal's electorate.
'Sheer disgust'
After Unesco added Durga Puja to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list, Mamata raised the financial grant for Durga pujas from Rs10,000 in 2018 to Rs1.10 lakh in 2025, a total outlay of Rs495 crore.
Prof Sarthak Roychowdhury of Gokhale Memorial Girls' College in Kolkata cited the TMC's minority consolidation strategy as having triggered a Hindu counter-consolidation, compounded by developments in Bangladesh last year, and the rape and murder of a doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.
"Education, medical facilities and employment became the biggest casualties," he added.
Apprehensive of erosion in her Hindu voter base, Mamata inaugurated a Rs250-crore Jagannath temple in Digha last June and laid the foundation of a Rs344.2-crore Mahakaal temple near Siliguri in January.
Jawhar Sircar, a former TMC MP who fell out with the party, said Bengali Hindus voting for the BJP did not mean the communalisation of society; "they did so out of sheer disgust."
What the BJP offered
Prof Udayan Bandopadhyay of Kolkata's Bangabasi College noted that the BJP had arranged trains for approximately 2.2 million migrant workers – many driven out of Bengal by lack of employment – to return home and vote.
Women voters, once Mamata's most reliable vote bank, also appeared to shift this time. The BJP's promise of Rs3,000 a month directly undercut Mamata's Lakshmir Bhandar scheme, which pays Rs1,500 to general category women and Rs1,700 to those from scheduled castes and tribes.
Political analyst Debasish Dasgupta said the result exposed a structural weakness that no personal effort could paper over.
Through a mix of polarising narrative, genuine concerns about jobs and corruption, and the promise of better employment opportunities, the BJP won over voters. At his rallies, Home Minister Amit Shah hammered on infiltration, cow smuggling and the TMC's "cut-money" culture.
As a result, in Hindu-majority seats where TMC had previously relied on a combined Hindu and en bloc Muslim vote, the BJP surged ahead on the back of Hindu consolidation, particularly among the Matua community, largely comprising Namashudra refugees from Bangladesh. The BJP candidate in Tehatta, Subrata Kabiraj, won by 28,000 votes, roughly three times the TMC's 2021 margin, according to Indian media.
Mamata's welfare politics had run its course, particularly for the aspirational class. "I do not want to just survive; I want to live well," said a woman in Gosaba in South 24 Parganas district.
In 2021, Mamata managed to check the BJP's challenge through women-centric schemes like Lakshmir Bhandar and Kanyashree Prakalpa.
But their appeal faded in 2026 in the face of the BJP's promise to double the Lakshmir Bhandar payout.
For voters, welfare had become the floor, not the ceiling.
