How BJP’s Chankya wielded victory in Bengal

As Thomas Kuhn wrote in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, transformative change begins when an established paradigm no longer works. The 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections represented precisely such a Kuhnian moment. The old political framework had begun to fray, but it was the Bharatiya Janata Party that transformed that breakdown into a coherent political alternative.

This was no ordinary electoral contest. The BJP sought to disrupt a deeply entrenched political order by directly challenging Mamata Banerjee on her home turf after more than 15 years of political dominance in the state.

At the centre of this campaign stood Amit Shah, the BJP’s principal strategist, who has refined his electoral playbook across multiple states, including Bihar. In Bengal, that strategy took the form of a calibrated, multi-pronged effort blending welfare messaging, identity politics and booth-level organisational discipline to create a viable path to power.

Few electoral transformations in recent Indian politics have been as dramatic. From winning just three seats in 2016 to 77 seats in 2021, and then crossing the 200-seat mark within a decade, the BJP’s rise in Bengal has been extraordinary.

The party’s vote share also surged sharply, rising from around 10 per cent in 2016 to nearly 38 per cent in 2021. The 2026 elections further amplified this trajectory. With voter turnout reportedly touching 92.47 per cent — among the highest in the state’s electoral history — what was once viewed as a political outlier evolved into a dominant force.

Beginning in January, Shah focused on constructing a granular booth-level network while conducting prolonged, high-intensity strategy meetings with the state leadership. Rather than allowing anti-incumbency sentiment to remain passive, he sought to convert dissatisfaction into voting behaviour by linking local grievances to a clear political alternative.

The BJP’s Bengal strategy rested on three pillars: building a disciplined organisational core, neutralising fear to widen participation, and prioritising execution over optics. The panna pramukh model ensured last-mile vote conversion, while community-specific outreach, narrative management and carefully calibrated candidate selection strengthened the campaign structure.

Shah crisscrossed the state through more than 66 rallies and roadshows. His decision to camp in Bengal for nearly 15 days enabled sustained coordination, narrative reinforcement and direct cadre engagement, transforming what is often a symbolic top-down campaign into a deeply embedded grassroots mobilisation effort.

The campaign structure introduced clear accountability, assigning workers specific responsibilities and targets, thereby converting the organisation into a disciplined, performance-driven electoral machine. A tightly curated operational team was assembled, with each individual deployed according to tested strengths — from Centre-state coordination and booth mobilisation to digital campaigning and voter turnout management.

This time, the BJP also redesigned its campaign to target micro-level electoral gaps, particularly in constituencies where it had narrowly lost in 2021, including more than 40 seats decided by margins below 10,000 votes.

A decisive turning point came when Shah addressed what had long worked against the BJP in Bengal: fear among both voters and party workers. His message — “vote fearlessly” — was reinforced through the large-scale deployment of central forces before and after polling.

The deployment of 2,407 companies of central forces ahead of voting, followed by the retention of nearly 700 CAPF companies after polling, sent a strong message that post-election violence and reprisals would not be tolerated. This sustained security presence altered public perception and encouraged greater participation among voters who had previously stayed away due to intimidation.

Optics took a backseat throughout the campaign. Instead, a tightly run central war room monitored constituency-level shifts in real time while remaining in constant contact with nearly 40,000 booth agents, ensuring that no polling station remained unmanned — a vulnerability that had hurt the BJP in 2021.

Layered onto this organisational machinery was a campaign of calibrated messaging. Rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all pitch, the BJP tailored its outreach to specific communities. For the Matua community, the Citizenship Amendment Act was framed as a solution to long-pending citizenship concerns. In north Bengal, the Gorkha issue was addressed through promises of time-bound resolution.

For women and unemployed youth, the BJP’s Sankalpa Patra sharpened its welfare pitch by promising to double cash transfers under the Lakshmir Bhandar scheme from ₹1,500 to ₹3,000, positioning itself as a stronger guarantor of economic security.

At the same time, the BJP sought to counter the “outsider” perception by reiterating that its chief ministerial face would be a Bengali leader educated in the Bengali medium — a calculated move to blunt the TMC’s cultural narrative.

The BJP’s 2026 victory in West Bengal ultimately reflected Amit Shah’s electoral strategy at its most precise — a demonstration of how disciplined organisation, targeted messaging and relentless execution can reshape a state’s political landscape.

(The author is a research fellow at NLSIU Centre for Public Policy)

Disclaimer: The views expressed are the author’s own and do not reflect the official policy or position of Financial Express.