BJP takes Hindutva route in TN, Bengal

HAVING wrapped up Bihar with an impressive win, the BJP’s dream run of electoral wins faces formidable challenges in two states which will vote in April-May 2026: West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Politics in these states pivots around strong regional forces that have persistently walled out the mainline parties or forced the BJP and the Congress to transact electoral arrangements on their terms.

These parties — the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal — are again expected to dominate the show.

While the Congress seems at peace riding on its ally DMK’s back in Tamil Nadu, it finds virtually no purchase in Bengal, not after the disastrous showing in Bihar. Both in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the 2021 Assembly elections, the Congress had an alliance with the Left Front (LF) that yielded nothing for both partners, but two LF constituents -- the All India Forward Bloc and the Revolutionary Socialist Party — recently raised objections to striking yet another deal with the Congress. The TMC, too, is unlikely to have any truck with the Congress.

On the other hand, true to its character, the BJP, notwithstanding its endeavour to cement a broad coalition in Tamil Nadu, is determined to put up a fight in both states, particularly Bengal. Buoyed by its success in the 2019 parliamentary elections, the BJP was convinced that it was a matter of time before it ‘conquered’ the eastern state. However, in the 2021 Assembly elections, it came nowhere close to its target of winning 200 of the 294 seats. It won only 77 (the tally fell to around 65 due to defections and bypoll losses), but the BJP had the satisfaction of getting 38 per cent of the votes and emerging as the principal Opposition party.

Undaunted by the not-so-encouraging statistics, Prime Minister Narendra Modi framed the Bengal battle with an image and a metaphor that he believed its voters could relate to. On the day the BJP celebrated the Bihar mandate at its Delhi headquarters, Modi declared, “The Ganga flows from Bihar to Bengal”, as though the mighty river would also deposit a bounty of votes in the BJP’s catchment areas. It was not an oratorical flourish because on cue, Modi’s chief strategist and Union Home Minister Amit Shah formed a team to act on the Bengal blueprint, some elements of which are already visible.

On top of the BJP’s playbook is the Hindutva card that has not yet brought in the expected gains in West Bengal and much less in Tamil Nadu, a state abounding in paradoxes that ultimately do not favour Hindu majoritarian politics.

The underlying political irony was reflected in the recent controversy ignited by the lighting of a lamp in the Subramanya Swamy temple at Thiruparankundram Hill in Madurai district. The temple is supposed to be one of the six abodes of Murugan, the second son of Shiva-Parvati and the most revered deity in Tamil Nadu. The Sultan Sikandar Avulia Dargah is located metres away, but barring occasional skirmishes, the lamp-lighting — an old and important ritual performed during the Karthigai Deepam festival to symbolise the triumph of light over darkness — passed off peacefully because of a court order to light the lamp away from an ancient pillar called Deepathoon, which is just 15 metres from the dargah and became a bone of contention.

This time, a petition filed in the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court sought permission to perform the ritual at the pillar. The BJP and its allies celebrated when the court allowed the petitioner to light the lamp at the spot, but the district administration promptly issued prohibitory orders which were enforced by the police. Armed with a legal sanction, the BJP and its supporters protested vociferously against the cops.

Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS chief, weighed in on the matter, saying that the “awakening of Hindus was sufficient to achieve the desired outcome” — it sounded like a veiled call for a confrontation if such a situation arose. Congress MP Karti Chidambaram said the BJP’s understanding of Tamil Nadu’s cultural and religious fabric was “fundamentally misplaced”. “The people of Tamil Nadu are most god-fearing, ritualistic, orthodox and temple-going, but faith does not mix with politics,” he added.

While the ruling DMK has stuck to its position, the ‘dispute’ can gain traction if the BJP and the RSS — which are bereft of strong local networks except in small parts — can sustain the momentum aimed at polarising a polity largely fed on the ideology of Dravida Kazhagam leader Periyar EV Ramasamy. A key feature of Periyar’s Self-Respect Movement was portraying Muslims as Dalits who converted to Islam to escape the caste oppression inherent in Hinduism. Most Tamil-speaking voters have no problem with Periyar’s postulate.

In West Bengal, after three successive terms in office, the TMC appears vulnerable over issues such as the alleged corruption by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s trusted lieutenants and the anger that spilled over on the streets after the brutal rape-murder of a young doctor in a Kolkata hospital. Then there are the quotidian experiences of people who have to deal with the ruling party’s musclemen and power-brokers, taking them back to the era of Left Front toughies who made survival possible only on their terms.

But the BJP has tied itself in knots over the issue of illegal migrants — data suggests that there are more Hindu than Muslim migrants in West Bengal. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls by the Election Commission has caused anxiety within the BJP’s own vote bank, along with the affront to the Bangla language, infamously described by the Delhi Police as “Bangladeshi language”.

Banerjee tried hard to depict herself as a “friend of the Hindus” with measures like the payment of monthly salaries to Hindu priests and organising the Durga carnival. The experience of other states demonstrates that the Opposition still finds it hard to beat the BJP over Hindutva; so, Banerjee will have to target the BJP’s other shortcomings.

The politics of Tamil Nadu and West Bengal is centred around a strong regional distinctiveness, unlike the Hindi belt where voters identify themselves seamlessly with the Hindutva narrative because religious identity is overarching. Can the BJP subsume markers of language and culture into the Hindutva theme?