Indian politics is a story of vanishing exceptionalisms. The two most entrenched and enduring regional formations have collapsed. Kolkata has fallen; Chennai has cracked. Kerala, true to form, has seen anti-incumbency; the BJP’s hold over Assam endures. These results consolidate the unprecedented national electoral prowess of the BJP and the ideological supremacy of Hindutva. It would be churlish to deny the unprecedented power of the Modi-Shah duo in the annals of electoral politics.

In Bengal, a state that prided itself on being as distinctive, the BJP has brought about a near-impossible electoral realignment. Even by the standards of its storied history, the BJP’s victory in Bengal is a remarkable tribute to its unmatched combination of ambition, perseverance, and political ruthlessness. It is, in a literal sense, a triumph of the will. It has not been stopped by any conventional electoral arithmetic, institutional propriety, identities like language, region or caste, or the embeddedness of a towering figure like Mamata Banerjee.

Defeat in retrospect always seems overdetermined. The fatigue, boredom, the corruption and nepotism, creeping thuggishness, the limits of welfare politics, and regional symbolism created background conditions for a BJP victory. But they would not have translated into victory if three things were not in place. After all, there is no evidence that the BJP will address better many of the discontents that fuelled it to power. The sheer determination........

© Indian Express