The BJP on Monday scripted history by breaching the formidable West Bengal frontier and dislodging Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress’ 15-year dispensation that had built in this eastern state a visibly impregnable wall of welfarism, organisational depth and the CM’s personal popular appeal.With 206 wins in a House of 293 (repoll due in Falta), a two-thirds majority, and near 45.74 per cent-plus vote share, the BJP pulled off a stunner which PM Narendra Modi framed as “people’s power prevailing” in a state that earlier changed the government only once in 49 years. That was in 2011 when Mamata decimated the Left that had taken root in 1977.Modi termed the BJP’s Bengal win as “historic and unprecedented” and said Monday’s results were a reflection of trust in Indian democratic and constitutional institutions. “The people of Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala voted in record numbers and showed the world why India is the mother of democracy,” Modi said in his victory speech at the BJP headquarters, in a clear counter to the TMC’s campaign against the Election Commission-led voter roll audit exercise. While Bengal stood out for the scale of the BJP’s victory — the first ever here — the saffron party struck a hat-trick in Assam and was headed for government formation with senior NDA ally All India NR Congress under CM N Rangaswamy in Puducherry.Today’s results had political and electoral churn written all over them not just for the outcomes in the toughest of eastern states, but also the south where actor Joseph Vijay upset the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu, spelling an end to a 69-year dominance of Dravidian parties in the state.Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee and DMK president MK Stalin lost their own bastions. Chief Minister Stalin was defeated in Kolathur by TVK’s VS Babu by over 9,000 votes. Chief Minister Mamata lost to BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari from Bhabanipur by 15,105 votes. In Bengal, BJP’s Ratna Debnath, the mother of RG Kar rape victim who became a rallying point against the TMC in Bengal, beat her rival—son of a five-term TMC MLA—by over 28,000 votes.In Kerala, the last of India’s Left bastions fell, with the Congress-led United Democratic Front ending the LDF’s decade-long rule. Kerala was the last of Left dispensations in the country, the earlier ones having fallen in Bengal (to Mamata’s TMC in 2011) and Tripura (to the BJP in 2018). For the Left in Kerala, it was time coming full circle today because it was in Kerala that the first democratically elected Left government anywhere in the world was installed in 1957. In Kerala too, CM Pinarayi Vijayan barely saved his seat while 13 of his cabinet colleagues lost in clear signs of anti-establishment sentiment.But the most phenomenal of outcomes—the one in Bengal today—came on the back of the BJP’s ongoing eastern expansion, which began with its 2024 Odisha victory over the BJD’s Naveen Patnaik, a five-term CM by then. Then came Bihar, which the BJP swept in alliance with the JD(U) in 2025, going on to install the first-ever saffron CM in the state (Samrat Choudhary) recently. Now in Bengal, the BJP is on course to forming the first-ever government on its own.PM Modi today dedicated the Bengal win to Bengal-born Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the founder of Jana Sangh, the BJP’s precursor. “Dr Mookerjee’s soul will rest in peace today. He sacrificed his life for the integration of J&K with India and against Article 370. He was against the partition of Bengal,” he said.The PM also hailed the Bengal victory as a “triumph of people’s power”. “The West Bengal Assembly elections will be remembered forever. People’s power has prevailed and the BJP’s politics of good governance has triumphed. I bow to each and every person of West Bengal. We will provide a government that ensures opportunity and dignity to all sections of society,” he said.While Modi spoke of the saffron surge across the entire Ganges stretch now from Uttarakhand and UP to Bihar and Bengal, BJP president Nitin Nabin framed the Bengal verdict as a sign of the BJP’s acceptance all over India.Bengal was the first Assembly poll to be held after Nabin became the party chief. Today, the youngest BJP president promised that the party’s next stop would be south India where it had so far been able to form a government on its own only in Karnataka although in Andhra the BJP shares power with the TDP-led NDA.For the BJP, a Bengal win implies it is no longer an outfit of Hindi heartland states but a force surging pan-India. After today’s results, the BJP on its own has chief ministers in 17 states and with the NDA, in five states.Nabin said the outcomes were a reflection of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s “failure” and predicted the fragmentation of the opposition INDIA bloc.