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No two ways about it: only a particularly saffron-tinted strain of intellectual dishonesty can deny that the BJP’s victory in West Bengal was secured through dhandlebazi on a monumental scale. At the same time, there is no reason to think the party’s leadership will permit anyone to second-guess its ‘historic’ electoral heist. There are no faint hearts in the upper echelons of the national ruling party. Nor is it realistic to believe the Supreme Court will do anything about this democratic fraud in West Bengal. Possession, after all, is nine-tenths of the law.

With West Bengal in the saffron column, the polity is poised for substantive structural realignment. The future does not promise ‘acche din.’ 

First, the conquest of West Bengal would take the BJP one step closer to its goal of becoming a pan-Indian party. The South remains elusive, of course, but the East is now fully under its control. It is easy to forget that the party does not command a majority in the Lok Sabha on its own, and that it is sheer cocksureness that has given the Modi government an unchecked run of the national stage. That arrogance will only deepen now, as other institutions feel increasingly intimidated. The Modi regime will be emboldened to believe it has a licence to impose its whims and “visions” on the entire country, without any obligation to build a national consensus on issues of fundamental importance to the country’s well-being. The opposition will be further........

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