By Yash Sadhak Shrivastava, Prateek Giri Goswami, Chandra Pratap Tiwari
Four different states, three surprising verdicts, one expected outcome. The election results announced earlier this month were nothing short of a political roller-coaster ride. The eyes of 1.4 billion people were fixed on these results because they will drastically shape the lives of millions.
But how did these parties manage to win?
Assam was perhaps the easiest to predict. Himanta Biswa Sarma’s popularity, combined with a weak opposition, had already tilted the field heavily in the BJP’s favour. But the real shocks came elsewhere.
In West Bengal, Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), for the very first time, managed to come to power after years of aggressive campaigning and the hugely controversial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, under which millions of names were removed from voter rolls. Critics alleged the exercise disproportionately affected opposition-leaning voters.
Tamil Nadu delivered another surprise. Actor Vijay not only launched a new political party but defeated MK Stalin’s DMK government, under which per capita income had surged, and the state continued outperforming much of India economically and socially. Though many credited political strategist Prashant Kishor for Vijay’s rise, the questions around the mythology built around election consultants have also become louder. After failing to win even one seat in his own state, Bihar, and after the humiliating collapse of parties that heavily depended on IPAC-style campaigning, doubts around how much these consultants actually matter now are no longer unreasonable.
And then came Kerala, the result that made many happy while leaving the country’s shrinking communist base deeply disappointed. Rahul Gandhi’s Congress alliance finally defeated CPI(M), ending the Left’s last surviving fortress in India.
West Bengal: The Collapse of Mamata Banerjee’s Fortress
For nearly 15 years, West Bengal had been ruled by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) under Mamata Banerjee, one of Narendra Modi’s fiercest critics and among the strongest opposition leaders in the country. But in a result that could permanently alter India’s political landscape and further demoralise the already fractured opposition, the BJP stormed to power with a massive mandate.
The result followed the BJP government’s controversial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, officially framed as an effort to remove “illegal voters” from electoral rolls. While the process resulted in millions of names being deleted and opposition leaders alleged many voters were not given adequate time to challenge their removal, SIR alone did not bring down the TMC.
The exercise of SIR emanates from the Registration of Electoral Rules, 1960, formulated by virtue of the Representation of People Act, 1950. It bestows power to the Election Commission to conduct revision exercises of rolls either intensively, summarily, or partially. While the deletion of rolls is largely attributed to AASD (Absent, Already Enrolled, Shifted, Dead), the Rules are not exhaustive as to how every step is conducted; rather, they provide generalised guidelines, leaving practical execution to the Election Commission.
The exercise of SIR and the subsequent questioning of its credibility via allegations of irregularities is not unprecedented. Once again, West Bengal has become the epicentre of the controversy. In 1981, the then Election Commission conducted an SIR on the grounds that the Draft Electoral Roll published that September had been manipulated to include Bangladesh nationals, minors, and dead persons. It was alleged that these manipulations were possible due to the deliberate infiltration of CPI(M) members into the election machinery as enumerators.
The infirmities were considered so basic that a de novo revision was deemed necessary for a fair election. This was challenged via a Writ Petition before the Calcutta High Court, contending that the directives issued to District Officers were vague, unreasonable, and arbitrary. Critics argued that house-to-house visits were skipped, and the names of eligible members were not recorded.
Eventually, the case reached the Supreme Court. In its judgment, the Court observed that the Election Commission had not acted unconstitutionally, acknowledging that directives were issued as steps-in-aid of a fair election. The court cautioned:
"It takes years to build up public confidence in the functioning of constitutional institutions, and a single court hearing, perhaps, to sully their image by casting aspersions upon them. It is the duty of the courts to protect and preserve the integrity of all constitutional institutions... courts must examine the allegations with more than ordinary care."
As the exercise of SIR is again engrossed in judicial scrutiny, it brings to mind the quote by Mark Twain: “History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
There was also visible anti-incumbency. Anger had been building for years over allegations of corruption, political interference in everyday life and the growing perception that dissent inside Bengal had become increasingly difficult.
The RG Kar hospital rape and murder case became another major turning point. Women voters, especially in urban and semi-urban Bengal, appeared deeply angry with Mamata Banerjee’s handling of the case. BJP gave a ticket to the mother of the victim, Ratna Debnath, who went on to win the Panihati seat by over 28,000 votes. Banerjee faced backlash after questioning why the victim was outside late at night and after initially making absurd remarks about the timing of the incident. The BJP also successfully amplified the narrative that opposition parties were “anti-women”, especially after the NDA government pushed the conversation around women’s reservation in legislatures.
Government employees and aspirants also appeared to shift heavily towards the BJP. Similar to Delhi, dissatisfaction among state government employees over salaries, benefits and implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission struck a chord with lakhs of voters. This included not only existing employees but also unemployed youth desperately preparing for government jobs.
Tamil Nadu: Vijay’s PR Politics
Film star-turned-politician C Joseph Vijay has pulled off what many thought was impossible. His party, Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), shattered the traditional political order in Tamil Nadu and emerged as the biggest disruptor in a state long dominated by DMK and AIADMK. Even though TVK fell short of a full majority, Vijay’s performance still marks one of the most dramatic political entries in recent Indian politics.
Tamil Nadu has always had a close relationship between cinema and politics. From MGR to Jayalalithaa, film stars repeatedly converted mass popularity into political power. Vijay enters that legacy, but in a completely different era: the age of reels, algorithms and digital mobilisation.
Vijay formally launched TVK only in 2024, but the groundwork had started years earlier. Back in 2009, he had already begun transforming his fan clubs into Vijay Makkal Iyakkam, a welfare-oriented grassroots network involved in relief work, educational support and local assistance. He consistently targeted younger audiences, speaking about exam stress, unemployment, corruption and issues affecting ordinary youth through his movies. He also criticised the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in 2019, helping shape a political identity beyond cinema. Pollsters observed particularly strong support for Vijay among voters aged 18 to 39 and among women across caste groups, including Scheduled Castes and OBC communities. What makes the result fascinating is that the DMK government had excelled economically. Tamil Nadu continued recording strong manufacturing growth and maintained some of India’s best social indicators. Yet performance alone no longer guarantees loyalty.
Younger voters increasingly appear less emotionally attached to old Dravidian narratives and more attracted towards the idea of “change” branding and digital connection. And maybe that is the biggest lesson from Tamil Nadu. An election today can be won not only through ideology or governance, but by mastering perception, social media and emotional marketing. Vijay’s PR machinery understood this far better than everyone else. So while veterans continue discussing caste equations and booth management, social media may already have rewritten Indian politics.
Assam: Himanta Biswa Sarma and the Politics of Fear
In Assam, the question was never whether the BJP would return to power. The only question was by how much. The BJP crossed the halfway mark on its own and, along with allies, secured a massive mandate in the 126-member Assembly. For Congress, this became one of its worst performances in Assam’s political history. The BJP alliance built an extremely effective political cocktail, aggressive rhetoric against “illegal immigration”, repeated targeting of Bengali-origin Muslims often labelled as “Miya Muslims”, massive infrastructure projects, welfare schemes aimed at women and constant projection of Himanta Biswa Sarma as the central face of governance.
Sarma’s aggressive image was carefully balanced with his projection as a benevolent “mama” figure, similar to the political branding Shivraj Singh Chouhan successfully built in Madhya Pradesh. And maybe not as aggressively as Vijay’s machinery, but Himanta Biswa Sarma’s PR game was equally sharp. Videos of people throwing Diet Coke cans at him during rallies, only for him to stylishly catch and drink them, went viral. Clips showing him behaving like Anil Kapoor from Nayak, taking instant decisions, helping elderly people and speaking in dramatic one-liners flooded Instagram, Facebook and YouTube reels.
But behind the “cool leader” image was also a much darker campaign strategy, convincing majority communities: ethnic Assamese, tribal and Bengali-Hindu, that they were constantly under threat and that the BJP alone stood as the final wall protecting them from Muslims. That fear politics cannot be ignored. Nor can the reality that Assam increasingly appears to have become a political resort for the BJP, where MLAs from different states are shifted during elections and governments are managed like a fish market.
And after the constant political attacks exchanged during campaigning, hopefully, Pawan Khera has ensured his own safety too, because Himanta Biswa Sarma does not look like a politician who forgives easily.
Kerala: When Communists Started Speaking the Language of Power
Indian communists once held enough power to threaten Manmohan Singh’s government over the India-US nuclear deal. Today, they have lost their final stronghold. With the defeat of the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front (LDF), Kerala, the last communist bastion in India, has fallen. For the first time since 1977, India will not have a communist chief minister anywhere in the country. The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) rode a powerful anti-incumbency wave and swept back to power after 10 years of Left rule. The Left’s decline has been visible nationally since 2009. But Kerala remained emotionally important because it symbolised the survival of communist politics in democratic India.
The biggest damage to CPI(M) may not have come from the opposition, but from its own contradictions. The party that once built its identity by fighting power abuse increasingly started behaving like every other establishment party. And no example represents that contradiction better than KK Shailaja.
Shailaja became internationally recognised during the COVID-19 pandemic for Kerala’s handling of the crisis as the health minister. The Guardian hailed her as a “corona slayer”, while the Financial Times listed her among the 12 most influential women of 2020. She was invited as a panellist for the UN Public Service Day, and the UK’s Prospect Magazine later named her the top thinker of the Covid era. People expected her to be elevated politically. Instead, she was sidelined. Despite her popularity, she was denied any meaningful position in Pinarayi Vijayan’s second ministry. Just before these elections, reports from party meetings suggested that Shailaja herself emotionally questioned why she alone was being pushed aside by the party, not letting her contest from her hometurf, Mattannur, while exemptions were granted to others.
Eventually, CPI(M) shifted her from Mattannur to Peravoor, a difficult Congress stronghold, a move widely interpreted as an attempt to politically contain her. And this is not even new in Kerala’s communist history. The sidelining of KR Gouri remains one of the deepest stains on CPI(M)’s legacy. In 1987, Gouri was projected as Kerala’s future chief minister. Leaders openly campaigned, saying Kerala would get its first woman chief minister. The Left won. But instead of Gouri, EK Nayanar became the chief minister. That history still haunts. Because once a party that claims to fight inequality starts sidelining powerful women from backward communities inside its own structure, the moral difference between it and other parties starts collapsing. This is exactly where CPI(M) lost its ideological edge.
Kerala is also politically very different from BJP strongholds like Madhya Pradesh or Odisha. In many northern and central states, elections are increasingly fought around religion, welfare promises and emotional mobilisation. Kerala’s electorate, on the other hand, is among the most politically aware and rights-conscious populations in the country. Voters there scrutinise power closely and punish arrogance quickly.
The CPI(M) made serious political mistakes and paid the price for them. But despite the defeat, communists may still become even more important as an opposition force in the coming years. As wars deepen globally, economies slow down, and inequality widens, questions around labour rights, welfare and wealth concentration will only intensify. In a country as diverse as India, there has to be space for every ideology. Because without ideological balance, democracy itself starts shrinking.
(Yash Sadhak Shrivastava is an environmental and business journalist whose work has appeared in respected outlets including Context News, Moneycontrol, The Indian Express Group, Down To Earth, Sanctuary Asia and others. He has received multiple fellowships from the Earth Journalism Network, Thomson Reuters Foundation, the Climate Narrative Hub and others. He was awarded a scholarship from The Centre for Investigative Journalism (TCIJ) and was selected as one of ten journalists from a global pool of applicants spanning 70 countries. He is also a member of the Clean Energy Wire (CLEW) network.
Prateek Giri Goswami is a dedicated Advocate with experience in active litigation and legal advisory. He possesses a specialised track record in navigating complex Consumer Protection cases, RTI matters, and environmental litigation before the National Green Tribunal (NGT). In addition to his litigation prowess, he is highly proficient in Contract Drafting, ensuring robust legal frameworks for diverse agreements. Prateek also brings a balanced approach to sensitive Family Law disputes, combining strategic courtroom advocacy with a commitment to achieving effective resolutions
Chandra Pratap Tiwari is an environmental journalist with bylines in Asia Democracy Chronicles, Outlook India, Ground Report, and Main Media. He has held fellowships with IISER Pune, the Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA), and Vikas Samvaad Samiti. He is recognised for his ground-breaking reporting on climate change and wildlife conservation.)