BJP FACES TWO TESTS: ELECTORAL & FISCAL

The mammoth win in Bihar is done and dusted. Can the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) now break into regional bastions in the upcoming state polls in 2026, and can it continue hiking welfare spending to garner votes?

- BY HOWINDIALIVES.COM

In the end, Bihar proved to be yet another routine victory for the formidable political apparatus of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The BJP, by itself or with its allies, has won seven of the ten states that have gone to the polls since the 2024 general elections, defeating the Opposition by wide margins.

But in some of these states, the BJP's alliance had always been the front-runner. What comes next is a different challenge.

In his victory speech after the Bihar results, Prime Minister Narendra Modi narrated an easy conclusion. "The river Ganga flows to Bengal via Bihar. And the victory in Bihar, like the river, has paved the way for our victory in Bengal," he said.

That's easier said than done.

West Bengal is one of the five states that will vote in the next round of state elections around April-May 2026. The BJP is the incumbent in Assam, and governs with an ally in Puducherry. But the other three are states it has never won: West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Over the past few years, it has used many political and administrative levers to muscle its way in, but in vain.

The odds in these states remain against the BJP. What the party has going for it is the tailwind of state election victories in differing, difficult, and sometimes contentious ways.

Parts of the blueprint it has used to win recent elections may well find further expression in 2026. This raises two pertinent questions: one electoral and one fiscal.

CAN THE BJP WREST REGIONAL BASTIONS?