The BJP’s sweep across Bengal was rooted in the consolidation of Hindu votes — but it also reflected deep public revulsion with fifteen years of Trinamool Congress rule.
Whether it was more a vote against Mamata Banerjee than a vote for the BJP is a debate that will continue. The scale of the victory, however, left little doubt about the public mood.
Conversations with voters on result day pointed to a common set of grievances: rampant corruption, a culture of violence and intimidation, a chronic jobs crisis, inadequate women’s safety and, above all, a perception of brazen appeasement politics.
Jobs’ scam
Near Bidhannagar Government College, a counting centre, a woman in her late 30s stood with her mother, both with saffron tilaks on their foreheads. She had been an art teacher at a government-aided school until April 3, 2025, when the Supreme Court upheld the cancellation of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching jobs at the secondary and higher secondary levels, citing corruption in their 2016 hiring process.
“I joined the BJP after all the other doors were shut. I had nowhere to go. But I wanted to take revenge on the Trinamool regime for ruining my life,” she said, declining to be named.
Trinamool had survived earlier scandals — the Saradha chit fund fraud, the Narada cash-for-favours sting. The teacher recruitment scam was different. In a state with few private-sector jobs, a government school posting was a mark of dignity. Its corruption indicted the entire system.
“The entire education department was in jail. Counting machines spent hours tallying the cash recovered from the education minister’s friend. Those images are etched in our minds,” said Srikanta Saha, 56, a Jadavpur voter marching in a BJP victory rally on Hazra Road — in Mamata’s own backyard.
RG Kar wounds
The rape and murder of a postgraduate trainee at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in August 2024 unleashed a wave of grief and fury that Calcutta had rarely seen. The election results suggest those wounds have not healed.
“My daughter comes home late from college. As a mother, I’m genuinely worried — and I shouldn’t have to be. Instead of ensuring women’s safety, Mamata said women shouldn’t stay out on the roads at night. That is shameful,” said Soumi Roy, an advocate at Alipore court, buying sweets outside the court compound, her face smeared with saffron abir.
After the RG Kar outrage, as women across Bengal demanded that every hour of the day be made safe for them, the government’s response was to limit women’s night shifts wherever possible. For many voters, that response said everything.
The grievances were not only urban. Deep in a South 24-Parganas village, a fisherman said the local Trinamool leader routinely harassed his wife in his absence. “We are helpless,” he said.
Living under threat
Abir Das, an autorickshaw driver in Tollygunge’s Azadgarh neighbourhood, had a BJP flag tied to his three-wheeler on Monday. He had voted for the BJP in the 2021 Assembly elections. He paid for it.
“More than 50 men raided my home at night. They threatened my family because I had voted for the BJP. I had to stay on the run for two months before I could come back,” he said.
On Vivekananda Road in Jorasanko, brothers Rahul and Ritesh Gupta — mild steel traders — were glued to their phones as early trends pointed to a BJP surge. Rahul had bought a saffron shirt a month ago for this day.
“Bengal has become synonymous with political violence,” said Ritesh. “States like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, once notorious for exactly this, no longer see election-related killings. But Bengal — a supposed intellectual hub — is still known for deaths during and after every election.”
The jobs problem
Debojyoti Das, 25, was celebrating outside the BJP’s state headquarters in Murlidhar Sen Lane. “Trinamool’s biggest failure was jobs. Why should young men and women have to leave Bengal to earn a living?” he said.
Susnato Dhar, 39, an IT professional based in Chennai, had travelled back to Calcutta just to vote. His 72-year-old father, partially paralysed, lives alone. “I cannot stay with him,” Dhar said over the phone from Chennai on Monday evening. “I voted for development. I voted for more industries. I voted for more jobs.”
Syndicate tax
From large apartment projects to minor home repairs, no construction in Bengal escaped the reach of ruling-party syndicates — local groups that compelled builders and contractors to buy substandard materials at inflated rates.
“I needed to repair a small part of my house. The next day, syndicate members showed up and threatened me. I had no choice but to buy all future materials from them,” said Robin Sahani, a voter in Entally. A Kasba resident had a local Trinamool leader turn up at his door demanding to know how he had dared hire his own labour to clear debris from a home repair.
‘Cut money’
Trinamool made welfare schemes central to its electoral pitch. But for many beneficiaries, the schemes came with an unspoken price. “Housing, sanitation — whatever the scheme, you couldn’t access the benefit without paying a cut to the local leader. It had almost become the norm,” said Sushil Pal, a BJP functionary from Sonarpur.
Appeasement
Perhaps no grievance proved more combustible than the charge of selective enforcement — different rules for different communities.
“She said one community, if unleashed, can destroy the other in one minute. How can a chief minister make such a statement?” said Shashi Narsaria, 67, a local BJP leader in Burrabazar. Monday, he said, was the happiest day of his life.
The allegations of appeasement made the Hindutva narrative easier to sell — and it was pushed harder than ever before, delivering returns to match.
On Cotton Street, sweet seller Bikram Sonkar said Bengal was overrun with undocumented Bangladeshi migrants and that only a government with the will of Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister Yogi Adityanath could fix it. “Yogiji’s meeting had four times the crowd that Mamata’s did. And why not? Hindus should vote for a party that cares for Hindus,” he said.