Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party is set to win two of four crucial state elections, expand its influence and weaken its key rival halfway into his third term in office.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was expected to return to power in the eastern state of Assam for the third straight term and was ahead in West Bengal, based on counting trends on the Election Commission website on Monday.
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Elections in five states and territories took place in April and May with the BJP seeking to make inroads into opposition-held states, which would bolster Modi’s ability to tackle a series of economic and foreign policy challenges, including a high unemployment rate and a pending trade deal with the United States.
Modi, his closest aide and Home Minister Amit Shah, and several senior BJP leaders have campaigned extensively in West Bengal for weeks, focusing on what they called “illegal immigration” from Bangladesh and the weak local economy under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Banerjee is a fierce critic of Modi and a key member of India’s opposition alliance. She has been in power in the state since 2011. The BJP has never governed West Bengal.
Trends released by the Election Commission of India on Monday showed the ruling party leading in 176 out of 294 seats in West Bengal.
Banerjee, speaking before the count, insisted her party would win.
“The BJP is not coming. Take my word for it,” she said. “Be patient till the last.”
West Bengal’s BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya told the AFP news agency he was confident of a win.
“It was an election of rejection,” he said. “People of the state want change.”
Al Jazeera’s Neha Poonia, reporting from New Delhi, said that based on its early leads that have come in, the BJP is heading for a “big win”, which would be a huge upset for Banerjee, who posted a video message addressing her party’s supporters and workers, asking them not to be disheartened.
“She claims that the Election Commission is deliberately going slow in counting votes in those seats where her party is likely to win,” Poonia said.
According to Uday Chandra, a professor at Ashoka University in the National Capital Region, the BJP’s lead is a much-needed boost for Modi.
“This is a much-needed win for the Modi government, which has come under pressure since [US President Donald] Trump’s tariffs and in particular after the war in Iran,” Chandra told Al Jazeera from New Delhi.
A weakened opposition against Modi
In the southern state of Tamil Nadu, movie star Joseph Vijay, a new entrant into politics who launched his Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) party in 2024, looked on course to oust the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party.
“The reason why this is so crucial is because Tamil Nadu is a state where Dravidian politics have dominated the political landscape for six decades, and the DMK, which was ruling in the state, and AIADMK [All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam], which is the opposition party in alliance with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP, have rotated power on and off for the last six decades,” Poonia said.
The TVK could break this pattern because Vijay has “mass appeal” and has “promised to address issues like unemployment, give out cash handouts to women and those unemployed as well, also help industries, and that, experts say, seems to have struck a chord with the voters of this developed state”, she added.
In the southern state of Kerala, an alliance led by the Indian National Congress party looked set to defeat the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist).
The DMK, a vocal rival of Modi, and Banerjee’s All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) party were the main pillars of the Congress-led opposition INDIA alliance. The alliance jointly fought the 2024 general election and deprived Modi of an outright majority in parliament, forcing him to rely on the support of regional parties to form a coalition government.
These state elections, however, are expected to significantly weaken opposition to Modi in 2029 when he is expected to contest for a record fourth term in office.
Omar Abdullah, chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, said a win for the BJP in West Bengal and the TVK in Tamil Nadu would be nothing short of a “political earthquake”.
“The aftershocks of these results will be felt far and wide for a long time, … probably all the way” to the 2029 general election, he said on X.
Campaigning was marked by protests over the removal of millions of names from voter rolls. The government billed the exercise as the removal of ineligible voters, but critics said it was skewed against marginalised and minority communities.
Chandra warned that the vote did not represent “free and fair elections”.
“Over nine million voters were excluded. Most of those were Hindus of unprivileged backgrounds and Muslims,” he told Al Jazeera.
“The incumbent in New Delhi controls the Election Commission in a way that has not happened for many, many years, perhaps ever. So normal election analysis looking at inflation, particular grievances among voters no longer suffices because we no longer have a level playing field.”
Final results are expected to be clear by Monday evening, but the outcome is not expected to have an immediate impact on politics or policy at the federal level.