Election of rejection: Bengal BJP chief targets TMC day ahead of results

State BJP president Samik Bhattacharya, speaking to IndiaToday.in ahead of the Assembly results, called it an "election of rejection" of Mamata Banerjee. He projected 200-plus seats and framed the campaign around Bengali pride, identity, and a "Bengal first" sentiment.

In Short

• Bengal BJP chief sees election as rejection of TMC amid scandals
• BJP aims to stop exodus and create apolitical Bengal, says Samik Bhattacharya
• He said Bengal will become an investment destination if BJP comes to power

On a Saturday night phone call with IndiaToday.in, Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya sounded at ease. After weeks of campaigning in the heat and dust, the mood around him was light -- faint chatter and occasional laughter in the background, with someone, almost in passing, heard discussing the health benefits of boiled chicken soup.

It has been an action-packed few days in Bengal since polling ended. The usually quiet interlude between voting and results has been anything but calm this time.

With clamour over alleged EVM tampering, repolling in some constituencies, and Mamata Banerjee’s “do-or-die battle” against alleged rigging showing no signs of ebbing, Bhattacharya remained unfazed. “She will not be able to do anything this time around,” he said calmly.

Asked whether his confidence stemmed from a pro-BJP wave or anti-incumbency, the state party chief called it “an election of rejection.”

“From teacher recruitment scams to unemployment, all factors are contributing to the TMC’s decline,” he told IndiaToday.in.

That calm, however, comes after a year of navigating a deeply divided organisation.

When Samik Bhattacharya took charge of the BJP in West Bengal a year ago, he inherited a house divided -- a party riven by factionalism and competing power centres.

Infighting was no secret; a former state chief, now a candidate, had even told the author in 2024 of internal efforts to undercut his prospects in the Lok Sabha elections.

Yet Bhattacharya’s rise had been anything but abrupt. A long-time organisational hand, he climbed silently from the grassroots, earning a reputation as a measured yet sharp communicator as the party’s chief spokesperson.

In the months leading up to his elevation as BJP’s Bengal chief, the trajectory quickened -- a Rajya Sabha berth in 2024, charged-up patriotic speeches in London as part of the Operation Sindoor delegation in 2025, and a visit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence upon his return.

Weeks later, he was handed the reins of the state unit at a moment of peak political stakes.

Scepticism followed swiftly. For rivals in the Trinamool Congress, Bhattacharya’s appointment was unlikely to resolve the BJP’s internal divisions.

“There is a constant fight between the camps led by Sukanta Majumder, LoP Suvendu Adhikari and former MP Dilip Ghosh It will be tough for him to keep the BJP united,” TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh had said at the time, even as he acknowledged Bhattacharya’s “decent behaviour.”

A year on, with results just around the corner, that early scepticism is now being put to test. Most exit polls project the BJP under Bhattacharya to be on course for a historic showing, with several giving it a clear edge.

Whether or not that projection holds, the party appears poised to better its 2021 tally and register its strongest Assembly performance in Bengal yet.

With elections behind him and results ahead, Bhattacharya told IndiaToday.in that he faced no major challenges as organisational head -- a quiet rebuttal to the early scepticism over whether he could tame the BJP’s warring factions after taking charge a year ago.

“It was teamwork all along. The only challenge, you could say, was to place our agents at every booth till the last moment and instil fearlessness in them. In that, we have been successful,” he added.

Though not contesting, Bhattacharya emerged as one of the faces of the BJP’s Bengal campaign. His image, alongside Suvendu Adhikari’s, travelled across the state on flexes of all sizes -- with PM Modi, Amit Shah, and BJP chief Nitin Nabin as the party’s central faces from Delhi.

Bhattacharya also framed the election as a wider assertion of identity and Bengali pride, saying the call for change went beyond the state’s borders.

Bengalis living outside the state and abroad, he said, “wanted a change” -- driven by a sense of pride and a “Bengalis first” sentiment.

He added that concerns over Bengal’s future had mobilised not just voters within the state but also the wider Bengali diaspora across the world.

“Almost everyone participated in this election -- not only the voters of Bengal, but those staying outside as well,” he said, adding that even non-resident non-voters contributed “in their own capacity.”

Once the BJP forms the government, Bhattacharya said, Bengal will be made into an investment destination.

“Our main aim is to stop the exodus of labour, students, capital and investors,” he said. He added that if the BJP comes to power, its priority would be to dial down Bengal’s “political overdose” and “create an apolitical society,” resetting the state’s political culture.

Initiated into the BJP through the RSS in the 1970s, Bhattacharya was asked whether the organisation had played a behind-the-scenes role in Bengal, as widely reported in the recent Maharashtra and Haryana elections. He dismissed the suggestion outright. “The RSS doesn’t intervene in the BJP’s election strategy,” he said.

For Bhattacharya, the message from the numbers is clear. Going a step further, he said 200-plus is within reach -- and for a leader who rose from the bottom rung to the top, the sky may well be the only limit.

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