Bengal Shockwave: Opposition’s Big Wake-Up Call
Bengal has just delivered a political thunderclap, and the opposition can no longer hide behind its favourite excuse board. The ruling BJP’s massive jump to 206 seats, while TMC collapsed to 80, has shaken every corridor of opposition politics. The loud cry of “stolen mandate” may sound dramatic, but drama is not strategy. In the political theatre of Bengal, slogans alone have clearly failed to stop the march of a better-organised rival.
Yes, the SIR process and voter deletion charges have raised serious questions. Denying the right to vote to lakhs of people is no small issue, and the opposition was right to protest. But here comes the uncomfortable question: was SIR the whole story or just a convenient umbrella for deeper failures? When the BJP wins not only in urban belts but also expands into rural, SC-dominated, and minority-heavy areas, the answer cannot be reduced to a single villain and a single headline.
This is where the opposition must look in the mirror, not at the camera. TMC, Congress, Left, AAP, SP, JDU, DMK, AIADMK, Shiv Sena and the rest of the rainbow coalition need less ego and more arithmetic. India does not reward solo performances when the opponent runs a disciplined, ground-level machine from booth to booth. But before blaming only the BJP’s machinery, these regional parties must also ask a sharper question of themselves: what have they actually delivered in governance that people can proudly recall? In many states, they too have allowed the same old politics to breathe, where the voice of the poor and marginalised was ignored, press freedom was squeezed, crime kept rising, women felt unsafe, and employment generation remained a slogan rather than a result. The BJP did not just win votes; it built a presence, messaging, and a cultural pitch that reached women, OBCs, SCs, urban voters, and even sections of the minority base. That is not luck. That is homework.
And what was the opposition doing? Fighting each other for relevance, chair, credit and prime-time oxygen. The INDIA bloc, at least in its current form, often looks less like a battle line and more like a group project where nobody wants to do the assignment.
Hard question time: Is there any serious plan to fight the BJP in 2029, or is the opposition still selling emotional noise wrapped in moral outrage?
Regional parties must understand one plain truth. Their survival now depends on partnership, not pride. Congress, for all its flaws, has to take leadership seriously, build trust, and stop behaving like a hesitant landlord of the alliance house. Regional forces, on their side, must stop treating Congress as an unwanted guest. If anti-BJP politics is to remain alive, it needs coordination, seat-sharing, issue-sharing and ego-sharing.
Bengal has sent a brutal message. Voter anger, women’s shifts, caste arithmetic, rural penetration, and campaign discipline all matter. Complaining about the referee is not enough when the other team has already learned how to play the match. The opposition must decide now: unite, modernise, and fight, or remain a chorus of wounded voices watching history move on without them.
