BJP recalibrates Bengal strategy for 2026, bets on booths, margins in past elections

Kolkata: The BJP in West Bengal is preparing for the 2026 assembly elections with a data-driven strategy focused on constituency-wise analysis of recent poll results, party leaders said, aiming to turn past vote arithmetic and margins into electoral gains.

Senior BJP leaders said the assessment draws on outcomes and vote-gap data from the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the 2021 assembly elections, and is aimed at prioritising constituencies where the party has either won or remained competitive.

They concede that a clutch of minority-majority constituencies, estimated internally at around 50, remain "structurally difficult".

These are seats where deploying booth agents, maintaining organisational presence and countering local networks pose persistent challenges. Rather than contesting this reality, the party has chosen to factor such seats out of its core electoral math.

Once those “difficult” seats are set aside, the BJP argues that the path to power narrows and sharpens.

“The people of Bengal want a change as they are fed up with the misrule of the TMC. We will focus both on new seats and also on segments where we have either won before or maintained a stable vote share, or leads in the last few elections,” state BJP president Samik Bhattacharya said.

According to its internal review, the party either won or led in 60 assembly segments in the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the 2021 assembly polls.

In another 40 seats, it did so in two of the three contests.

Additionally, the BJP registered at least one win or lead in 60 more segments over the same period.

Taken together, these add up to 160 assembly constituencies, the party leader said.

Two more - Ashoknagar, won by BJP candidate Badal Bhattacharya in a 1999 bypoll, and Basirhat South, where Samik Bhattacharya won a bypoll in 2014, are included in what the party terms its “probable acquisition list”, taking the count to 162, fourteen seats more than 148- the halfway mark in the 294-member House.

The BJP in the last 2021 assembly polls had won 77 seats and had bagged 38 per cent votes.

Senior state BJP leaders argue that the party’s assessment is "less about nostalgia and more about margins".

"In these seats, the cumulative vote difference between the BJP and the TMC in the last election cycle was under 10 lakh," a senior leader said, adding that an average increase of "around 3,000 to 3,500 votes per seat can significantly alter the outcome".

That vote arithmetic, BJP leaders said, underpins their renewed emphasis on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

BJP leaders have linked the exercise to a potential narrowing of the statewide gap with the ruling TMC, contending that the removal of ineligible or duplicate names could dent the ruling party's margins.

Geographically, the BJP’s confidence remains anchored in north Bengal and Matua-dominated belts. Of the 14 assembly segments under the Bongaon and Ranaghat Lok Sabha constituencies, the BJP led or won in 12 across all three elections.

Repeated victories have been recorded in north Bengal seats such as Dhupguri, Maynaguri, Dabgram–Phulbari, Alipurduar, Madarihat, Kalchini and Falakata, along with Malda segments including Englishbazar, Old Malda and Habibpur.

“These are not accidental wins. They show sustained shifts in social alignment and political behaviour," a senior party leader said.

The BJP is also refusing to write off Kolkata and its fringes, despite its 2021 setbacks.

Assembly segments such as Jorasanko, Shyampukur, Bidhannagar and Habra saw the BJP lead in both the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections, even though the party lost them in the last assembly polls.

One-time wins or leads in Bhabanipur, Rashbehari, Maniktala, Barasat, Baharampur and Jangipur are cited as evidence that these seats are not “structurally hostile”.

“Winning once proves the social composition is negotiable,” said a BJP MP, echoing a sentiment heard repeatedly in internal meetings.

What marks a departure from the 2021 campaign, party leaders insist, is method. Gone is the emphasis on high-profile defections, chartered flights of turncoats and mega rallies as a substitute for groundwork. The new mantra is organisation.

To meet that end, the BJP has identified three operational pillars for 2026.

The first is electoral integrity-ensuring stricter central force deployment, tougher election observers and closer scrutiny of polling and counting processes.

Leaders argue that neutralising booth-level intimidation alone could alter outcomes in dozens of marginal seats.

The second pillar is vote consolidation.

The BJP expects further erosion of the Left and Congress vote base, though leaders acknowledge that the scale and direction of such transfers are difficult to predict.

“Those votes will not go to the TMC. Historically, they consolidated with us," a state unit leader argued.

The third is leadership messaging, where the central BJP leaders are expected to remain the party’s principal campaigners. Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari will continue to mount relentless assaults on the TMC.

Bhattacharya is being positioned as the party’s cultural, economic, and governance voice, articulating a post-TMC vision centred on investment, jobs and administrative overhaul.

Political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty said, “The BJP’s approach is more data-driven than in previous elections. But Bengal elections are also shaped by turnout, welfare delivery, fear and local power structures. Past leads indicate competitiveness, not certainty."