As the NDA registered a resounding victory in the Bihar Assembly elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the pitch for and set the eyes on Bengal next. Addressing party workers at the BJP headquarters in Delhi on Friday evening, PM Modi said after Bihar, BJP will next uproot the “jungle raj” in Bengal.
As per the trends for Bihar Assembly elections results showed on Friday, the NDA was easily crossing the 200-mark, ensuring a 2/3rd majority.
“Ganga flows through Bihar and reaches Bengal. Bihar has also paved the way for the BJP’s victory in Bengal. I also congratulate the brothers and sisters of Bengal. Now, together with you, the BJP will uproot jungle raj from West Bengal as well,” PM Modi said amid a rousing roar from thousands of party workers that were present during the celebrations.
With the Assembly elections to the 293 seats of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, will be held in 2026, the BJP and the Trinamool are likely to fight around the issues of women’s safety, law and order situation, infiltration from Bangladesh, and Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral roll, among others.
In Bihar Assembly Elections 2025, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) secured 202 seats, while the Mahagathbandhan (MGB) managed only 35.
The SIR holds special significance in the run-up to the high-stake Bengal polls next year as it aims to flush out illegal voters from the electoral roll, an issue that has become a bone of contention between the two rival parties in the state.
Notably, SIR 1.0 was successfully carried out in Bihar, resulting in the removal of around 65 lakh fake voters from the state’s voter list. The Mahagathbandhan vehemently opposed the drive, alleging it deliberately targeted the voter-base favouring them.
Following the PM’s assertion of a BJP win next in Bengal, several party leaders carried the message forward.
“Bihar toh bas jhanki hai, West Bengal abhi baaki hai (Bihar is just the trailer, West Bengal is next),” Bengal Leader of Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, who defeated Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee in the 2021 elections, tweeted with a portion of PM Modi’s speech on Friday.
On Friday morning too, when the NDA was leading in Bihar as per trends, Adhikari sent out a tweet, saying, “Bihar ki jeet hamari hai, ab Bengali ki baari hai (Bihar belongs to us, next is Bengal)”.
The saffron party also tweeted from its official X handle, “Next West Bengal”.
BJP IT cell chief, Amit Malviya, echoed PM Modi’s sentiments and wrote, “Ganga flows through Bihar and reaches Bengal. Bihar has also paved the way for the BJP’s victory in Bengal”.
However, PM Modi and the BJP’s bold call for an election win in Bengal inevitably invited the Trinamool Congress’s scathing reply.
“Dream on,” a short post on X by Trinamool’s official handle read. “Bring it on,” said another.
The TMC also called PM Modi’s assertion “pure illusion” and insisted that Mamata Banerjee will return to power with 250 seats in 2026.
Party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said Modi’s comment about BJP’s victory “flowing” from Bihar to Bengal reflects a flawed understanding of Bengal’s political landscape.
He argued that voters consistently reject the BJP’s divisive politics and said Bengal is among the safest states. Pointing to high-profile crimes in Uttar Pradesh, he urged Modi to “look there first” before criticising Bengal.
Meanwhile, Trinamool MP Kalyan Bandyopadhyay said Mamata Banerjee should be the leading face of the INDIA bloc to take on the BJP at the national level.
Bandyopadhyay insisted that Banerjee is best positioned to lead the opposition alliance, describing her as the strongest challenger to what he called the BJP’s communal and authoritarian politics.
Expressing confidence that the TMC will secure a clear majority in 2026, he rejected the idea that the BJP’s strong showing in Bihar would impact Bengal. He argued that the BJP’s organisational advantage in Bihar and the Congress’s weaknesses shaped that result, but the situation in Bengal is different.
PM’S ‘PARASITE’ ATTACK ON CONGRESS
Continuing his tirade against Opposition party, PM Modi slammed the Congress, calling it a “parasite party”, who harms its allies during elections. PM Modi warned that the allies should think twice before tying up with the Congress.
“Even the Congress allies are beginning to understand that the Congress is drowning everyone in its negative politics. That is why, during the Bihar elections, I said that the ‘naamdar’ of the Congress is practising to drown himself and others in the Bihar elections by taking a dip in the pond,” PM Modi asserted.
“I have previously warned Congress allies from this very platform. I said that Congress is a liability. Congress is a parasite that wants to make a comeback by swallowing the vote bank of its allies,” he added.
The BJP’s perennial star campaigner also said the Congress has turned into what he termed the “Muslim League–Maoist Congress,” arguing that the party’s agenda now centres around these influences.
He added that a section within the Congress is uneasy with what he called its negative style of politics and warned that this internal discomfort could eventually lead to another major split in the party.
Earlier, the numbers released by the poll panel showed that the NDA – comprising the Nitish Kumar-led JDU, the BJP, Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ramvilas), and Upendra Kushwaha’s RLSP – was on its way to register a landslide victory with over 200 seats.
The Mahagathbandhan of the RJD, Congress and other partners were reduced to less than 30 seats.
This is the NDA’s best ever tally in Bihar, with the BJP all set to emerge as the single-largest party in the state for the first time.
– Ends
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