The Ganga’s course from Bihar to Bengal is not merely geographical. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invocation of this metaphor on Bihar’s result day signals a political current that has already begun to flow eastward. The BJP has activated its West Bengal strategy not in the afterglow of victory, but in anticipation of it. Amit Shah’s repeated visits to Kolkata, the quiet mobilisation of booth committees across 70,000 polling stations, and the formation of a five-zone organisational structure suggest a party that was never waiting for Bihar’s verdict to sound the battle cry for Bengal. Not after the rude awakening of 2021, when the saffron party was confident of victory, but faced a drubbing at the hands of the TMC.

Modi’s declaration that the Ganga flowing from Bihar to Bengal has paved the way for BJP’s victory is the clearest articulation yet of the party’s eastward ambitions. The NDA’s sweeping victory in Bihar, where it secured 202 of 243 seats, has provided both momentum and a template. Not to mention, the BJP has finally overshadowed the JD(U) and emerged as the single-largest party in Bihar. More importantly, it has demonstrated that women’s welfare schemes like the Mukhya Mantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana, which provided 10,000 rupees to over 1.5 crore women, can be decisive electoral weapons.

But Bengal’s battle will be fought on terms that Bihar never imposed. The state urgently needs a government with the spine to confront illegal immigration. The current dispensation, by contrast, has perfected the art of looking away.

The numbers are stark and telling. Between 2023 and March 2025, the Border Security Force pushed back over 5,000 Bangladeshi nationals attempting to infiltrate India, with West Bengal accounting for 2,688 cases, the highest among all border states. In just three days this November, 94 Bangladeshi nationals were arrested trying to........

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