The Ideas Page: Opposition should go back to drawing board, reimagine politics, rewire machine 9 TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2026 JourNalISm of CouraGE MUMBAI, LATE CITy, 24 PAGES ₹5.00 l www.indianexpress.com DA I Ly F R O M : A H M E DA B A D , C H A N D I GA R H , D E L H I , J A I P U R , KO L K ATA , L U C K N O w , M U M B A I , N AG P U R , PAT N A , P U N E , VA D O DA R A WeSt BeNGAL (293 seats*) BJP TMC 2021 2021 INC 77 2026 4 107 TVK DMK+ 2021 2021 2021 215 2021 0 INC CPI(M) 159 TVK BJP 3 102 BJP+ INC+ AIUDF OTHERS 2021 2021 2021 2021 2021 2021 2021 41 AIADMK+ Others UDF PUDUCHeRRY (30 SeAtS) AINRC+: 16 (36%) INC+: 6 (32%) TVK: 2 (NA) OTH: 6 (15%) 34.9% (NA) 0 46.0% (39.5%) 79 BJP Others VOTE SHARE 21 2 31 BJP+ 1 16 0 INC+ 11.4% (12.4%) 29.9% (45.4%) 7.6% (11.5%) 4.5% (4.7%) 99 LDF 26.1% (42.7%) 31.4% (45.8%) LDF 102 35 75 DMK+ reG.no. MCS/067/2018 - 20 rni reGn. no. 1543/57 ASSAM (126 SeAtS) UDF 53 VOTE SHARE 45.9% (38.0%) VOTE SHARE 74 — 2 3.0% (3.0%) 40.8% (48.0%) KeRALA (140 SeAtS) AIDMK+ 02 TMC BJP OTHERS 2021 206 81 VeRDICt tAMIL NADU (234 SeAtS) 12.6% (2.7%) AIUDF 5.5% (9.29%) 30.24% (30.51%) Others VOTE SHARE 48.11% (47.9%) 16.15% (12.3%) Note: Leads as of 12.00 am; 2021 vote share in brackets; Source: EC; *Full repoll to be held in Falta, West Bengal on May 21; TVK contested its first election BJP wave sinks Mamata, Vijay rides Tamil tide Assam returns Himanta, Congress routs Left to reclaim Kerala west bengal Mamata loses her seat, says ‘loot, loot, loot... an immoral victory’ From Gangotri to Ganga Sagar, only the lotus blooms: Modi Manoj C g & Jatin anand New Delhi, May 4 stOrMInG the last Opposition citadel in the east, the BJP Monday trounced the ruling tMC in West Bengal to end Mamata Banerjee’s 15-year rule and returned to power in Assam with a landslide win for a third consecutive term. Banerjee was among the losers, defeated in Bhabanipur by BJP’s suvendu Adhikari whoalsowonfromnandigram. tamil nadu delivered the otherstunningverdictasactorturned-politicianJosephVijay’s tVK, a new entrant, neared the halfway mark in the 234member house, surprising the Dravidian majors and toppling the DMK-led government of M KstalinwholostfromKolathur. Kerala opted for change, votingintheCongress-ledUDF to end the run of the LDF led by Pinarayi Vijayan, the last Left Business as Usual By EP UNNY CM Mamata Banerjee on way to a counting centre in Kolkata. ExPRESS atri Mitra Kolkata, May 4 government in the country. the Union territory of PuducherryreposedfaithinthenDA comprising the All India nr Congress and the BJP. the one unmistakable message from the results of the Assembly elections was that of »COntInUeD On Page 2 baRaMatI byPOll Sunetra wins by 2.18 L votes, breaks Ajit record Manoj More Pune, May 4 AsWIDeLyanticipated,Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister sunetraPawar,alsothenCPnational president, on Monday wontheBaramatiAssemblybypoll by a record margin of over 2.18 lakh votes. In the process, she also surpassed her late husbandAjitPawar’srecordvictory margin of 1.65 lakh votes. “We have been saying that sunera Pawar will win by a record margin of votes and even break Ajit Pawar’s record. It has come true. It is a glorious victory which is a tribute from »COntInUeD On Page 2 inSiDE 108 136 168 76 pages 3, 4 atsinvokesUapa in‘lonewolf’ attackcase elgaarcase: Hc grantsBailto gadling,only accUsedstill inprison prime Minister narendra Modi with BJp national president nitin nabin at the party headquarters in new Delhi, Monday. PRAVEEN KHANNA SIR in Bengal: TMC won 13 of 20 seats with highest voter deletions Damini nath & sandeep singh New Delhi, May 4 hOWDIDthespecialIntensive revision (sIr) of electoral rolls play out in the West Bengal results? While the final numbers are still being firmed up, two earlytrendsaretelling:ofthe20 seats that saw the highest numberofdeletions(seecharts) »COntInUeD On Page 2 23 6 1 1 SAMSERGANJ 74,775 AITC AITC 7,587 55,420 AITC AITC 18,960 -36,460 BHAGABANGOLA 47,493 AITC AITC 56,407 8,914 RAGHUNATHGANJ 46,100 AITC AITC 40,555 -5,545 METIABURUZ AITC AITC 87,879 Polarisation, Himanta’s popularity take BJP to absolute majority -67,188 LALGOLA 48,300 39,579 sukrita baruah *VICTORy MARGIN LOwER OR HIGHER THAN SIR DELETIONS IN THAT SEAT INSIDE Chennai, May 4 TVK chief Vijay celebrates the poll victory, in Chennai. PTI tuency by 8,795 votes to tVK’s V s Babu — marking a rare instance of a sitting Chief Minister being unseated on home turf. In essence, tamil nadu is witnessing the rise of its first truly new political force in five decades — not a faction, not a breakaway, not a rearrangement of the familiar Dravidian »COntInUeD On Page 2 assaM Votes 2021 2026 2026 Difference* deleted winner winner margin arun Janardhanan ExPANDING FOOTPRINT, PAN-INDIA STAMP: THE MANy GAINS FOR BJP pAGe 10 THREE KEy CMs OUT, OPP BLOC SHRINKS, NExT wORRy — PUNJAB, HIMACHAL pAGe 6 ExPLAINED: NEw CM’S INBOx — THE STATE OF STATE ECONOMIES pAGe 7 ASSAM-BJP TEMPLATE wILL GO NATIONAL pAGe 8 »FULL COVERAGE Pages 7, 10-15 »COntInUeD On Page 2 Guwahati, May 4 FOr MAny who had read the writing on the wall during the Assam election, the question wasnotwhethertheBJPwould return for a historic third term in power, but rather by how much. With himanta Biswa sarma at its helm, the party has surged to its strongest position inthestateyet,crossingthe100 mark with its allies in the 126-member Assam Assembly. A decade after it first came to power in Assam, which also marked the first time it had ever come to power in a northeastern state, the BJP has secured an absolute majority in thestate.Inboth2016and2021, it had secured 60 seats on its own and formed the govern- Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma with party leaders and supporters in Guwahati. PTI ment with its ally Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), along with the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) in 2016 and the United People’s »COntInUeD On Page 2 l younG VoTerS Are ASSerTinG poliTiCAlly for CHAnGe Congress-led UDF ends Pinarayi’s 10-year run, BJP wins three seats shaju Philip Thiruvananthapuram, May 4 the COnGress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) stormed back to power in Kerala, ending a decade in Opposition with a commanding 102-seat victory in the 140member Assembly. riding a powerful anti-incumbency wave, the alliance dismantledseveralCPI(M)bastions, reducing the ruling Left DemocraticFront(LDF),which was seeking an unprecedented Seats First disruption since MGR: How Vijay caught imagination of voters KeRala nDA inDiA AAP TVK l Seatswithmostdeletionsduringadjudication taMIl naDU In A result that has already rewritten tamil nadu’s political grammar, actor-politician Vijay’stamilagaVettriKazhagam (tVK) won 107 seats in the Assembly elections, ahead of the DMK (60) and AIADMK (47), even as Chief Minister M K stalin lost his Kolathur consti- l Whohasthestates As the trinamool Congress (tMC) trailed behind the BJP throughthedayinWestBengal, the final nail came as the day ended — party chief and outgoing Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee lost to the BJP’s suvendu Adhikari by over 15,000 votes in Bhabanipur. speaking to reporters outside the counting centre, Banerjee alleged that the BJP had “looted more than 100 seats”, adding that it was an “immoral” and “illegal” victory. “BJP looted more than 100 seats.theelectionCommission is the BJP’s commission,” she said, adding that she had com- plained to the chief electoral officer, but no action was taken. “Do you think this is a victory? It is an immoral victory, not a moral victory. Whatever the election Commission has done, along with the central forces, the Prime Minister and homeMinister,istotallyillegal. It is loot, loot, loot. We will bounce back,” she said. While Banerjee led in the earlier rounds of counting, her final tally was 58,812 votes. Adhikari,theLeaderofOpposition in the outgoing Assembly, bagged 73,917 votes. BanerjeereachedthecountingcentreatsakhawatMemorial Government Girls’ high school at about 3.45 pm, and Congress leader V D Satheesan celebrates his party’s victory in Kerala, Monday. PTI third-consecutive term under Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, to just 35 seats. the LDF defeat means no state in the country now has a Left government — a first in nearly five decades. the BJP, meanwhile, managedtosecurethreeseatstoput up its best showing in an Assembly election in Kerala. While CM Vijayan retained his Dharmadam seat, 13 of his Cabinet colleagues were defeated. they included prominent faces of the LDF »COntInUeD On Page 2 First-time, young voters, high turnout: Gen Z, restless, restive and aspiring for opportunities, asked for more neerja Chowdhury New Delhi, May 4 eACh OF the verdicts in West Bengal, tamil nadu, Assam and Kerala is distinctive. But taken together, read with their record turnouts,theysendapowerful message: the young voters, restless and restive,worriedabouttheir present, and wanting a better future, are asserting politically for change. Many of them are unencumbered — or shrugging—theburdensofthe past. In West Bengal, the firsttime voter this year would have been an infant when the feisty Mamata Banerjee stormed the red Fortress in 2011 or transformed the Brigade Parade Ground into a poster of resistance. In tamil nadu, the under30s, fatigued by the DMK-AIDMK binary, which is all they have seen, found in actor Vijay's tVK a new vehicle that could drive E. TVK supporters celebrate in Chennai, Monday. PTI downtheroadtochange.Inthe south, there is only one other example of a leader occupying the CM’s chair within months offormingtheparty—thatwas nt rama rao in Andhra Pradesh,alsofromtheworldofcelluloid, who came to power in the wake of humiliating words uttered by the then PM rajiv Gandhi against the then CM t Anjaiah. In hindsight, the 2026 election has been about Gen Z. It is also about “Dil Maange More” »COntInUeD On Page 2