Explained : State Assembly Elections: BJP, Congress, and Regional Powers and Its Impact

In India, one or the other State goes to polls every year, as the cycle of Assembly elections in different States remains different. The year 2026 is not going to be any different, with five State elections falling due in April-May. These five States are Assam and West Bengal in the east, and Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Puducherry in the south. The elections will once again test the electoral support, organisational strength, electoral strategy, and leadership qualities of various political parties as these remain the key to electoral success in Indian elections. Not that governance and welfare politics do not matter, but the backbone of electoral success for any party is its organisational strength and leadership qualities.

While at this moment it is extremely difficult to say which party has an edge in the electoral battle in any State, for various strategic reasons the stakes are high for the two big national parties, the BJP and the Congress, as well as for the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the regional parties of Trinamool Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). There are many other regional parties that will be testing their strength in these States, but most of them are likely to be in alliance with the bigger parties in their respective States.

In Assam and Puducherry, the BJP will be defending its sitting government, while the two regional parties—the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the DMK—will be defending their seats respectively in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. The Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led LDF will be defending its government in Kerala. The challenge for the BJP will, first and foremost, be to retain power in Assam and Puducherry where it is the incumbent party, and then to try and snatch power from Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, who has been in power for 14 years.

Assam

In the 2021 Assembly election in Assam, the BJP and its allies won 75 seats (BJP 60 seats) and polled around 45 per cent votes, while the INDIA bloc (Mahajot, as it is referred to in Assam) won 50 seats and polled around 41 per cent votes. It is important to note that while there was a big difference between the NDA and Mahajot in terms of seats, the vote share difference between the two alliances was around 4 per cent.

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A minor change in the support base of the two alliances can upset the NDA’s calculations, although given the popular mood that may not be easy. The key to electoral success in Assam, besides popular support, is alliances: how various parties, but chiefly the Congress and the BJP, are able to form alliances with smaller regional parties that have pockets of support among the smaller tribes, castes, and communities.

Puducherry

A small Union Territory with an Assembly of 30 legislators and small electorates in each seat, victory and defeat are decided here by smaller margins, and elections in Puducherry have been very tricky in the past. Governments are often formed with a smaller majority, as parties/alliances have generally failed to get a big mandate, as seen in Sikkim and some other smaller States and Union Territories. The NDA (alliance of the BJP and the All India N.R. Congress) will be defending its government in Puducherry. As in Assam, pre-poll alliances are likely to be important in Puducherry too, although the Union Territory has the tradition of post-poll alliances when no single party or alliance gets a majority. Independents also play an important role in Puducherry.

West Bengal

West Bengal is likely to witness a fierce battle in 2026, with the TMC trying to defend its government and the BJP putting in all effort to snatch power. The TMC has been in power for the last 14 years, and there is likely to be some anti-incumbency and dissatisfaction amongst voters. While the TMC does face the challenge of overcoming this likely hurdle, it is difficult at this moment to assess if there is a mood against the ruling party. Some incidents of violence against women, the teachers’ recruitment issue, and the recent issue of mismanagement during the footballer Messi’s visit seem to have somewhat dented the image of the ruling TMC, especially of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, but whether these incidents have already become a story of the past and the voters have moved on or whether the opposition, mainly the BJP, will be able to make them matter as electoral issues is the factor to watch.

Fourteen years is a long time, and governments have been thrown out of power after so long, but one should not forget the existence of the Gujarat model, where not only has the BJP been in power since 1995, but it managed to emerge stronger in the last Assembly election. The question, however, remains: can the TMC hold on to its support base or will the scale tilt towards the BJP? The saffron party has been working very hard to challenge the powerful TMC in Bengal. While it has been successful in that it managed to emerge as the main opposition party, winning 77 Assembly seats with 38.1 per cent votes, it still failed to defeat the TMC. It goes to the BJP’s credit that it managed to push the Congress and the Left Front far behind, relegating them to a poor third and fourth position, respectively, with their vote percentages in single digits.

Kerala

The BJP is also working very hard in Kerala, a State that has traditionally seen bipolar contests between the LDF and the United Democratic Front (UDF), with power alternating between the two alliances after every election. The 2021 Assembly election was an exception, when the LDF managed to retain power for a second consecutive term. The BJP has been putting in a lot of effort for the party’s expansion in Kerala. It got some electoral success in the 2024 Lok Sabha election and managed to open its account, with Suresh Gopi winning the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat. Again, in the recent local body elections, in the 100-member Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation, the BJP managed to win 50 wards, falling just one short of an absolute majority, while the LDF was pushed back to 29 seats and the UDF to 19 seats, with two Independents.

One does not know if the results of the local body election are any indication of the BJP’s growing support in Kerala or whether it is just a local phenomenon, but the results of the last two Lok Sabha elections (2019 and 2024), the Assembly election of 2021, and the recent local body elections do indicate that the BJP is on the ascent in Kerala. It would be the party to watch in the upcoming State election. While the BJP tilted the scales unexpectedly in some States in recent times (Haryana and Delhi), can it spring a similar surprise in Kerala?

Tamil Nadu

The State of Tamil Nadu has traditionally seen bipolar contests between the two traditional political rivals, the DMK and the AIADMK. This time, it sees the entry of a new political party, the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), launched by actor Vijay (full name Joseph Vijay Chandrasekhar, widely known as Thalapathy Vijay). His party has made it clear that it hopes to contest the 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly election alone and be the main challenger to the ruling DMK. In his first major party conference, Vijay framed the TVK’s line as “secular social justice”, declaring the BJP an ideological enemy and the DMK a political opponent while promising an egalitarian, corruption-free politics focused on equality, social justice, women’s empowerment, and caste census-driven policy.

A house in Villupuram district sports the rising sun symbol of DMK, and the two leaves of AIADMK.The launch of a new party by Vijay has injected excitement into the race, but mass rallies alone may not translate into electoral success.
| Photo Credit:
T. Singaravelou

At this moment, the only speculation is whether the TVK can indeed change the political equation of Tamil Nadu. The initial response that Vijay received was extremely encouraging but, tragically, his rally, which drew large crowds, resulted in a stampede in which at least 41 people died. At present, there is no guarantee that the large crowds he draws will also turn into his voters. We have seen how Jan Suraaj drew large crowds in rally after rally in the 2025 Bihar Assembly election, but the party ended up with only 3.3 per cent votes.

In recent years, there have been instances of both a new political entrant being very successful in electoral politics (Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi and Punjab, led by Arvind Kejriwal) or being completely routed (Jan Suraaj in Bihar, led by Prashant Kishor). The two national parties, the BJP and the Congress, have always played second fiddle to the DMK and the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu. The question remains: will they be willing to continue playing second fiddle or will they explore some new political equations, one of which may be to form an alliance with the TVK? Besides the latter, there are a large number of regional parties that have mostly aligned with either the DMK or the AIADMK, with few exceptions. Will the DMK and its allies pull off another victory or will the AIADMK in alliance with the BJP or the new entrant TVK be able to upset Tamil Nadu’s equations?

Future of Congress and INDIA bloc

The shape and size of the INDIA bloc and the health of the Congress will depend a lot on how regional parties and the Congress perform in the State elections of 2026. The stakes for the Congress are high in Assam, where it will be in direct contest against the BJP. It is important to note that the Congress has been out of power in Assam for the last 10 years. It is also important to note that the Congress and its allies put up a strong contest in the 2021 Assembly election. So, for the Congress, it will be a do-or-die battle in Assam—losing another election will mean being out of power for a long 15 years. Not that parties have not made a comeback after so long, but if it loses again in Assam, it may become a huge challenge to keep its house in order there.

Kerala too will be challenging for the Congress, which leads the UDF alliance. It failed to win in 2021, despite the State seeing a change in government in every other election. Its failure in 2021 was seen as a huge setback for the party, and that has put the onus on the Congress much more this time to pull off a victory and form the government in Kerala. And it will have to do this even as the BJP is emerging as a political force in Kerala.

National politics, alliances, leaders

West Bengal is likely to see a direct contest between the BJP and the TMC, and Tamil Nadu a direct contest between the ruling DMK and the AIADMK. For the INDIA bloc to survive and remain relevant, it is important both for the TMC to retain power in West Bengal and for the DMK and allies to retain power in Tamil Nadu. While the INDIA bloc’s future depends on the victory of the TMC and the DMK, the Congress party’s leadership and its legitimacy within the all-India bloc will depend on how the Congress itself performs in the various Assembly elections.

Though Mallikarjun Kharge is the president of the Congress party, Rahul Gandhi is still seen as the one who leads the party from the front. When the Congress performed well in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, it was seen as a success for Rahul Gandhi, and the party’s failure in the following State elections, losing Haryana, Maharashtra, and Delhi, was equally attributed to Rahul Gandhi’s leadership abilities. If the Congress fails to perform well in the 2026 Assembly elections, more questions will be raised about his leadership.

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The BJP has recently got itself a young national working president in Nitin Nabin. Though still new to the job of leading the party at the national level, Nabin will be put to the test when he handles party affairs in States such as Assam, West Bengal, and Kerala. If the BJP performs well in some of these States, Nabin’s stature will certainly increase. Similarly, a possible victory in Assam may also pave the way for a possible national role for Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. All in all, an interesting year is coming up from the point of view of electoral contests.

Sanjay Kumar is a professor and election analyst. The views expressed here are personal and do not reflect the views of any organisation.