Is the Bengali bhadralok ready to swap his jhalmuri for dhokla?

An election like never before in Bengal.

Never did the state see electoral roll revision to the extent it saw this time in the runup to the polls. Never did the country see polling in such high percentage terms (93.2%) as in the first phase of Bengal assembly elections on April 23. Never did the state see such a polarised atmosphere in the hustings as this time around. And never has the country seen a prime minister engage in such immersive campaigning for a state election as it has happened in Bengal this time.

So, will a state that has voted for change only twice in the last 50 years, reach for the ‘reset’ button in 2026?

A 93.2% polling in the first phase would normally be seen as the Bengali bhadralok voting with his feet. In other words, a strong sign of anti-incumbency. But these elections are a psephologist’s nightmare. Primarily because with 91 lakh names deleted from Bengal’s electoral rolls as part of SIR, the percentage of turnout doesn’t quite allow an accurate comparison with past years of polling in absolute terms. With the denominator sharply reduced, the numerator must be viewed in context, regardless of any percentage surge.

Secondly, in the 2006 assembly elections, polling touched 82%, which was about seven percentage points higher than the 2001 figure. Yet, Left Front won 235 seats – up from 199 in 2001 – beating all undercurrents of anti-incumbency hands down.

But elections are as much about mathematics as they are about chemistry. And the chemistry of the 2026 assembly polls in Bengal takes us to a fight that goes beyond number-crunching and into a realm that’s more of a point-counterpoint between identity politics and an urge to ring in the new. On the one hand, we have Mamata Banerjee, still the biggest and most potent mascot in governing TMC, trying to secure a fourth term. On the other hand, we have Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah pulling out all the stops to stop Didi in her tracks and breach what is often termed as the “last frontier” for BJP: Bengal.

Mamata and TMC have always tried to project the Modi-Shah duo as “bohiragoto” or outsiders, given their Gujarati roots. This plank had served TMC’s cause in 2021, with Kolkata and the districts plastered with posters that loudly proclaimed “Bangla tar meyeke e chaye” (“Bengal wants her daughter”). A masterstroke that played on Bengali asmita to blunt BJP’s call for “poribartan” or change. A blitzkrieg aimed at upending the political equation on the banks of the Hooghly had met with its nemesis in the form of identity politics.

But 2026 is different. This time around, there’s a clear attempt on the part of the BJP central leadership to get the messaging right to project its call for change as not merely a political pitch, but an attempt at placating Banglar swabhimaan through a walk the talk that collates positive public sentiment with a ballistic push for electoral brownie points.

In that sense, fielding Ratna Debnath, the mother of Abhaya, the RG Kar Medical College rape-murder victim, as its candidate from Panihati is one BJP move that has found huge traction, particularly among women. How much of that will translate into votes is still up in the air, but there’s no denying that across Bengal, Ratna has turned out to be the most tangible sign of a clamour for “justice”, for women’s safety, empowerment, and emancipation. With her march down Harish Chatterjee Street the other day, the South Kolkata neighbourhood that houses the CM’s residence, far from her Panihati constituency in the northern fringes of the city, Abhaya’s mom took the fight to Mamata’s doorstep – quite literally. It is a pan-Bengal messaging of electoral ‘chemistry’ that’s trending way beyond the ‘mathematics’ of poll punditry.

It is also interesting how the Modi-Shah combine has crafted its campaign narrative this time around. While the Union home minister has taken the “election machinery” of TMC head-on, warning it of dire consequences should there be any attempt at malpractice and voter coercion, the PM is playing a perfect foil to that shrill messaging with a campaign pitch that’s focused on promises of laying out the Bengal story afresh on a new template.

This two-pronged political attack, coupled with an Election Commission that’s keeping no stone unturned to ensure voters come out of their homes and vote without fear, has kept Bengal’s ruling party on edge.

The TMC’s response largely follows an agenda set by the Modi-Shah duo, pushing Mamata and her colleagues into a reactive stance. The best example of that is the way the PM himself has set the buzz from the Darjeeling hills to the marshlands of Sundarbans – be it with his jhalmuri pit-stop while campaigning in Jhargram, his morning boat ride on the Hooghly, or his massive road show in North Kolkata on the last Sunday of campaigning, when there was a visible emotional connect with those who lined the streets and filled the rooftops, showering flower petals on him.

With each of those calibrated, calculated gestures, Modi has sent Mamata and the entire TMC brass into a tizzy, forcing them into counterattacks that are based less on substance and far more on rabble rousing. In terms of optics, Modi seems to have clearly stolen a march over Mamata.

The irony is certainly not lost on how the Bengal CM left the dais in a huff midway through her speech on Saturday in Bhabanipur, where she is the candidate, complaining of an orchestrated din from a BJP election meeting just across the road to drown out her voice. Rivals, though, claimed it was those rows of empty chairs in the audience that cheesed her off.

There is one other factor that should also keep TMC worried, and that is the possibility of a split in minority vote. Since the Left’s defeat in 2011, minorities (read Muslims) in Bengal, accounting for roughly 27% of the electorate, have continued to vote en masse for TMC. For the first time in more than a decade, Bengal is likely to see a change in that pattern, with Congress, ISF, and AIMIM eyeing a share of the TMC minority vote bank pie, particularly in Malda, Murshidabad, North and South 24 Parganas, accounting for 92 seats, or roughly 31%, in a 294-member assembly. The danger is clear and present for TMC.

So, is the change-averse Bengali bhadralok finally set to swap his pack of jhalmuri for a plate of dhokla? ‘The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind’, as a Bob Dylan would say!

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