The theme of the current round of assembly polls across four states, it appears, is anti-incumbency. Three of the four states have gone for a change in the most dramatic fashion -- Kerala going back to its revolving door system and ushering in the UDF; Bengal discarding Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress and giving a roaring welcome to the BJP; Tamil Nadu saying goodbye to its five-decade worth of binary Dravidian policy and cheerfully rolling out the red carpet for a political novice oozing star power.
If the results do not veer from the current trajectory, the outcome would be a churning in the Opposition INDIA block, while for the BJP, it would paint a saffron wave that stretches from the northeast all the way to Gujarat.
With two of its most stalwart leaders - Mamata Banerjee and MK Stalin -- down in their home states as the Congress manages to wrest Kerala and with luck, engineer an alliance with Vijay in Tamil Nadu, power equations within the Opposition bloc is set to change.
The Congress, which was increasingly finding itself on shaky terrain given Banerjee eyeing its unofficial leadership position, will finally be able to rest easy.
West Bengal
The BJP is on course to win its long-coveted prize - the state that would complete its march in the east.
The party, which had completely rewritten its script for this election - one markedly different from 2021 -- has won 206 of the 293 seats in Bengal. The Trinamool has won 79 seats and is leading in two - less than half of its massive score of 215 seats in 2021. The votes of Falta -- where a repoll took place on account of violence -- will be counted later this month.
That anti-incumbency was the driving power in this election was underscored by the unexpected return of the Congress and the Left Front -- the former is ahead in two seats of Malda and the Left from two seats. The Congress had not been able to open account in 2021 and the CPM had won one seat.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who lost her Bhabanipur stronghold to aide-turned-BJP-face Suvendu Adhikari by over 15,000 votes, said it was a case of "loot, loot, loot". "It is an immoral victory. More than 100 seats have been looted, she said, promising that the party will " bounce back".
Adhikari expressed his doubts, declaring that the result spelled "Mamata Banerjee's retirement from politics".
Learning its lesson from 2021, the BJP had neither advanced Trinamool turncoats nor attacked the Chief Minister personally, but quietly fielded sons of the soil and hammered on its promises of development, jobs, local infrastructure and corruption-free governance.
The other big role in this election was that of the Election Commission - which had the twin jobs of Voter Roll Revision and conducting a violence-free poll.
The voter list revisions had pared down the electoral rolls by 91 lakh -- the figure includes over 27 lakh voters following adjudication, whose appeals are pending in 19 tribunals. The number is more than 11.6 per cent of the electorate - and bigger than the Trinamool's 10 per cent victory margin of 2021.
Tamil Nadu
The southern state where the election, as always, was expected to pivot on governance, welfare measures and Hindi imposition, pulled all stops to vote for Vijay. The Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam or TVK won 107 of the state's 234 seats, where the majority mark is 118.
The Congress has won five seats, its ally DMK 59 and is leading in one seat. The AIADMK is a distant third, winning only 47 seats.
With Vijay's TVK falling short of majority mark, the Congress apparently is ready to jump into the breach. Reports say the party - its aspirations for power sharing in the state rebuffed by ally DMK -- has sent out feelers to the TVK.
Photo Credit: PTI
Vijay, despite an earlier controversy involving a stampede at a rally in September 2025 that resulted in more than 40 deaths, now stands positioned as a new force in the state's politics.
While he is potentially joining the lists of earlier actor-politicians like MG Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa, who transformed their silver screen aura into votes and smoothly transitioned into governance, Vijay, who lacks a background of political apprenticeship of either, has been able to tap into the youth's aspiration for a change from inherited politics and old faces and beginning with a clean slate.
The crushing blow to the DMK was capped by Chief Minister MK Stalin's defeat from his bastion Kolathur by little known VS Babu of amilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK). Babu, an ex-MLA, was earlier with the DMK and he beat Stalin by a margin of 8,795 votes. Stalin was defeated last in 1991 and he became the second sitting Chief Minister after Jayalalithaa to lose an election.
Accepting the verdict, Stalin said, "We ran a government for all people, including those who did not vote for us. I remained committed to every section and acted according to my conscience".
Kerala
Kerala, the country's most literate state and the initiator of the revolving door mandate, has gone back to its default mode after a term of deviation. The state has brought in the Congress and shown the door to the Left-led LDF.
In the process, it has brought about a historic change - cutting the ground from under the feet of the Left. For the first time in 77 years, the CPM does not have a state to rule, its bastions Bengal and Tripura already history.
The election was seen as a referendum on the rule of Pinarayi Vijayan, who was hailed as the party strongman after the 2021 victory. What also brought the Left bloc to its knees is the factionalism that saw three key leaders changing camps on the eve of the election. Vijayan, though, won the Dharmadam constituency seat over his Congress candidate with a total of 85,614 votes.
The UDF won 89 of Kerala's 140 seats, where the majority mark stands at 71. Of these, the Congress won 63 seats. The LDF was a distant second with 35 seats - a huge drop from the 92 seats it won in 2021. The BJP has also expanded its niche, winning three seats in the state.
Much of the UDF victory is also seen as traction from the victory of RAhul Gandhi and later, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in the Lok Sabha by-elections after Rahul Gandhi gave up the Wayanad seat to retain Rae Bareli.
In a post on X, Rahul Gandhi said, "Thank you to my brothers and sisters in Keralam for a truly decisive mandate".
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also expressed her gratitude, saying, "The trust you have placed in us will be the UDF's guiding force as we work hard towards building a better future for each one of you".
The UDF victory also signals a generational shift in the state's politics, as the Congress moves forward without stalwarts like K Karunakaran and Oommen Chandy. Leadership within the alliance is now centred around figures such as VD Satheesan, who has been a prominent voice against the LDF government.
Assam
In Assam, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma led the BJP to a third consecutive term in a vote that stands strongly for consolidation. The ruling alliance won 102 of the state's 126 seats, vaulting comfortably over the majority mark of 64. The Congress could only scrape up 21 seats, a big drop from its 2021 score of 31. Badruddin Ajmal's AIUDF (All India United Democratic Front) could win only two seats, down from 16 in the last election.
Akhil Gogoi-led Raijor Dal, part of the opposition alliance, won two seats and the Trinamool Congress bagged one.
The real test for the BJP was whether the party managed to achieve majority on its own in the state assembly. But this was a barrier the party crossed with ease.
The BJP won the 2016 and 2021 polls in alliance with the Asom Gana Parishad. This time, the party won 82 seats. The AGP won 10.
In a stunning upset, Congress's state chief Gaurav Gogoi lost the Jorhat constituency to BJP's Hitendra Nath Goswami by a margin of 23,182 votes, marking a symbolic end to the Gogoi family's undisputed influence in Upper Assam.
Puducherry
In Puducherry too, the NDA won another term, with the BJP and ally All India NR Congress scooping up 18 seats - two more than their 2021 score of 16. Of these, the AINRC alone has won 12 seats. The BJP won four.
Actor Vijay's TVK, which upset all equations in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, opened their account in the Union Territory with two seats.
Opposition DMK won five seats and the Congress one seat.
AINRC leader and Chief Minister N Rangasamy won from both the seats that he contested--Thattanchavady and Mangalam.
In Thattanchavady, his pocket borough seat, he beat rival E Vinayagam fro Neyam Makkal Kazhagam by 4,441 votes. In Managalam, he defeated DMK's SS Rangan by 7,050 votes.
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