But in some of these states the BJP’s alliance had always been the frontrunner. What comes next is a different challenge.
In his victory speech after the Bihar results, Prime Minister Narendra Modi narrated an easy conclusion. “The river Ganga flows to Bengal via Bihar. And the victory in Bihar, like the river, has paved the way for our victory in Bengal,” he said.
That’s easier said than done.
West Bengal is one of the five states that will vote in the next round of state elections around April-May 2026. The BJP is the incumbent in Assam, and governs with an ally in Puducherry. But the other three are states it has never won: West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Over the past few years, it has used many political and administrative levers to muscle its way in, but in vain.
The odds in these states remain against the BJP. What it has going for it is the tailwind of state election victories—in differing, difficult, and sometimes contentious ways. Parts of the blueprint it has used to win recent elections may well find further expression in 2026. This raise two pertinent questions: one electoral and one fiscal.
Can the BJP wrest regional bastions?
The BJP has a chief minister in 14 states and is in government in another eight. It has 1,642 of the 4,120 Assembly seats, based on the last full election held in each state. Between May 2019 and November 2025, the BJP has gained 278 Assembly seats. By comparison the Congress, its principal national contender, has dropped 178 seats and continues to see its relevance diminishing. Regional parties continue to hold on amid the BJP’s bid to centralise power.
In the three states that will vote in early 2026 and where the BJP is not in power, West Bengal is the one the BJP is realistically eyeing victory. In both the last state and general election in West Bengal, it secured a strong vote share of 38-39%. Also, its vote share did not drop off between the last state and general elections. This has not been the case in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. All three states are currently seeing a special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, an exercise that caused consternation among most parties but not the BJP in Bihar.
The BJP’s recent electoral success has three distinct strands. One, it has dealt with allies astutely, taking their support when needed but also effectively weakening their hand (Maharashtra). Two, it has leveraged its control over power structures and institutions. Three, it has embraced welfare schemes.
The BJP has gone from using a pejorative to describe welfare schemes (‘revdi’ or freebies) to launching pre-election income distribution schemes aimed at women voters. In March 2023, the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh launched the Ladli Behna Yojana, which transferred ₹1,000-1,500 per month to women who were aged 21-60 years and were permanent residents of the state. In December 2023, the party returned to power.
The BJP extended such income schemes to Maharashtra, Haryana, Delhi and Bihar. It won all states. The scheme in Bihar, Mukhyamantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana, was launched on 26 September, barely a month before the state voted. It saw ₹10,000 each being transferred to 7.5 million women, at an outlay of ₹7,500 crore—3.3% of Bihar’s total estimated expenditure in 2024-25.
Can welfare spending continue to rise?
Such expansion in social and welfare spending by state governments isn’t new. In the first decade after liberalisation, the share of such allocations in total state expenditure was largely stagnant at around 1.7%. It started increasing this century and accelerated after 2004-05, when the Congress-led government returned to power at the Centre. As a share of total spending, it rose from about 2% in 2004-05 to 5% in 2015-16.
After the BJP unseated the Congress at the Centre in 2014, this figure initially remained between 4.5% and 5.2%. Then, came covid, followed by state elections where political parties of all hues doubled down on welfare promises. The share of welfare allocations in total expenditure of states has risen in each of the five years since from 4.7% in 2019-20, and is projected to hit 7.3% for 2024-25. This is also the period of the sharpest rise.
Between 2022-23 and 2024-25, for the 11 states that have shown the highest surge in welfare allocations, the increase has grown at a compounded annual rate of 29% (Delhi) to 92% (Karnataka). Nine of these 11 states saw elections during this period. And the other two, Tamil Nadu and Assam, are due for elections in early 2026.
Ironically, during this period, Bihar was the only state to see a decline in allocations for social security and welfare—from ₹10,350 crore in 2022-23 (actual) to ₹7,399 crore in 2024-25 (BE). But this number is likely to spike as the BJP-JD(U) combine implements the income transfer to women. With more electoral tussles coming up, chances are that more states will follow suit.
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