West Bengal election 2026 : The Bengal Verdict Before the Verdict

By Prof. Ujjwal Chowdhury

The Moment Before the Verdict

As of 3 May 2026, Bengal stands in that charged interval between voting and verdict. The queues have ended, the slogans have faded, the booth agents have filed their last reports, and counting is scheduled for 4 May. Yet the political story already has a shape. It is not a story of a government without anger against it. It is not a story of an opposition without energy. It is not even a story of a state fully satisfied with its present condition. It is a story of comparative trust: between a ruling party that has entered the household through welfare, organisation and identity, and a challenger that has expanded dramatically but still has not become a sufficiently trusted governing alternative in Bengal.

The Trinamool Congress is likely to win this election not because every Bengali voter is content, and not because the BJP has failed to create anti-incumbency. TMC is likely to win because, in the lived grammar of Bengal politics, Mamata Banerjee still carries a more credible emotional contract with the voter than the BJP does. The uploaded documents converge on the same thesis: TMC's social coalition, women-centred welfare, minority consolidation, booth-level embeddedness, Bengali identity narrative and Mamata's singular leadership still outweigh the BJP's campaign of corruption, law and order, polarisation and central power. But that same thesis carries a warning: if TMC wins a fourth term, it cannot continue with the older model of welfare plus local control. The next mandate must become a governance reset.

TMC is likely to win not because Bengal is free of anger, but because its welfare memory, social coalition, Bengali identity and Mamata Banerjee's personal connect still outweigh the BJP's opposition narrative.

The Welfare State as Political Memory

The first chapter of the story begins not in television studios but in kitchens, schoolbags, ration queues, hospital counters and bank passbooks. TMC's greatest strength is that welfare has become personal. Lakshmir Bhandar is not merely a scheme name printed in government advertisements. For more than two crore women, it is a recurring monthly recognition by the state. Kanyashree is not merely a scholarship scheme. It is a memory of the state telling a girl that her schooling matters. Swasthya Sathi is not merely a card. For families that have used it in moments of medical panic, it is evidence that the government can intervene when money is unavailable. Rupashree, Sabuj Sathi, Student Credit Card, Utkarsh Bangla, Duare Sarkar and related initiatives have together built a welfare ecosystem that reaches across life stages: school, college, health, marriage support, skilling, local certificates, grievance redressal and household cash.

The uploaded material places the scale of this welfare system at the centre of the election. Lakshmir Bhandar is reported to cover around 2.21 crore women, with large annual allocations and cumulative expenditure running into tens of thousands of crores. Kanyashree has crossed the one crore or near-one-crore beneficiary mark in different official and political references. Swasthya Sathi is described as covering crores of families or roughly eight to nine crore people, with over one crore hospitalisation or service beneficiaries. Sabuj Sathi has reached more than a crore students through bicycles. Duare Sarkar has delivered more than ten crore public services through lakhs of camps. These numbers matter because they are not abstract campaign claims to a poor household. They are proof that something has arrived.

This is why the BJP's promise of a larger monthly payment to women, including the pitch of Rs. 3,000 per month, faces a credibility problem. In election theory, future promise can defeat past delivery only if the challenger is trusted more than the incumbent. In Bengal, TMC can say, "We are already paying." BJP must say, "We will pay if elected." For an urban analyst, the difference may appear administrative. For a lower-income woman, it is existential. A guaranteed smaller flow can be more valuable than a larger uncertain one. In the political imagination of Bengal, TMC's welfare architecture has become a running tap; the BJP is offering a new pipeline whose water is yet to be tested.

Social Arithmetic: Minorities, Women and the Fear Factor

The second chapter is social arithmetic, but arithmetic in Bengal is never only arithmetic. Muslims constitute about 27 percent of West Bengal's population according to Census 2011, and in many districts and constituencies they are decisive. It would be analytically incorrect to claim that any community votes 100 percent in one direction. But the documents correctly emphasise that strong minority consolidation behind TMC remains one of the party's greatest advantages. Post-poll and political analyses after the 2024 Lok Sabha election suggested a very large Muslim preference for TMC. In 2026, that consolidation may sharpen further because of BJP's rhetoric around infiltration, Bangladeshis, Rohingyas, CAA, UCC and voter verification.

Here, BJP faces a paradox of its own making. The harder it speaks to one section of Hindu voters through suspicion of minorities, the more it consolidates Muslim voters behind TMC. The decision not to field Muslim candidates in the 2026 Assembly election, as noted in the uploaded documents, becomes symbolically meaningful in a state where minority representation is not merely arithmetic but also dignity. TMC's fielding of a significant number of Muslim candidates, and Congress fielding even more in some accounts, allows Mamata Banerjee to claim that she represents Bengal's social plurality while BJP represents a politics of exclusion.

Smaller minority-oriented parties such as AIMIM or ISF may try to fragment this vote, but the current climate makes TMC's counter-narrative powerful: do not split the vote when the larger threat is disenfranchisement and centralised majoritarianism. The uploaded drafts also treat controversies around splinter Muslim initiatives with caution, correctly distinguishing between allegation and proof. The political point, however, stands: where minority voters fear that vote division may help BJP, consolidation becomes a survival instinct rather than a party preference.

The third chapter is the Special Intensive Revision of the voter list, or SIR, which has become more than an administrative exercise. It has become an emotional wound. The uploaded documents present slightly different numerical formulations but converge on the political essence: the revision created deep anxiety among the poor, minorities, migrants, Dalits, Matuas, elderly voters and families with fragile documentation. Some accounts state that the electorate before draft publication was over 7.66 crore and the final roll came down to about 6.44 crore, with more than 60 lakh doubtful or pending cases under adjudication. The exact official mechanics may be contested, but the lived experience is clear: many families felt that the right to vote had become uncertain.

SIR: Administrative Revision as Democratic Anxiety

That uncertainty does not affect only the person whose name is missing. If one member of a family is deleted, doubtful or summoned into an adjudication process, the entire household feels insulted and threatened. If a grandfather's name remains but the grandson's disappears, the family does not interpret it as technical cleansing. It interprets it as democratic insecurity. If documents accepted earlier are suddenly treated as insufficient, the voter does not see software accuracy; the voter sees suspicion. TMC has converted this into a powerful argument: Bengal's poor, Bengal's minorities, Bengal's migrants and Bengal's ordinary people are being harassed in the name of cleansing voter rolls.

The BJP expected that voter-roll revision and citizenship politics would help it by sharpening the infiltrator narrative. But the documents argue that the fallout has not been so neat. Reports cited in the drafts suggest that a large share of excluded or affected people were Hindus, including lower-income Hindu households, Dalits and Matuas, even while specific constituencies also showed disproportionate minority impact. This complicates BJP's strategy. Instead of producing a clean Hindu-versus-Muslim polarisation, SIR may have produced a shared grievance across communities. For TMC, that is politically valuable because Mamata Banerjee can present herself as the defender of the voter, not only the defender of minorities.

The fourth chapter is Mamata herself. The TMC has scandals, unpopular local leaders, factional arrogance and accusations of syndicate culture. Yet many voters still distinguish between "Didi" and the local "dada." This distinction may appear illogical to critics, but it is politically real. Mamata Banerjee remains Bengal's most emotionally legible leader. Her cotton saree, rubber slippers, street protests, rough humour, impatience, anger, poetry, songs, injuries, hunger-strike memory and permanent posture of combat give her something that no BJP leader in Bengal has matched: a sense of being recognisably local, unmediated and personally invested.

Mamata Banerjee: The Singular Face of the Contest

The SIR controversy has allowed her to return to her strongest political role: protector of Bengal against Delhi. Every confrontation with the Election Commission, every court battle, every protest march, every slogan about Bengali dignity helps her become again what she was before 2011: a fighter against a larger power. The irony is that after fifteen years in government, she can still campaign as if she is fighting from the street. That is a rare political skill. Many incumbents become administrators; Mamata has remained agitator-in-chief.

Her gender is not incidental. TMC's welfare architecture has been deliberately feminised. Kanyashree speaks to girls, Lakshmir Bhandar to women, Rupashree to poorer families with daughters, self-help groups to rural economic networks, and panchayat representation to local female visibility. Mamata is not merely a woman chief minister; she is the symbolic centre of a women-facing political economy. BJP can and does attack TMC over women's safety, especially after Sandeshkhali and RG Kar. These attacks have force. But BJP has not built a comparable Bengal-specific women's economic architecture. That difference matters at the polling booth.

The fifth chapter is organisation. Bengal elections are not won only by speeches from helicopters. They are won through booths, para networks, clubs, panchayats, self-help groups, local grievance handlers, ration-card problem solvers, school contacts, hospital mediators, beneficiary lists and counting-room vigilance. The uploaded documents repeatedly emphasise that TMC's booth machine remains its hardest electoral weapon. The CPI(M) once had such embedded structure; today it does not. BJP has expanded since 2019, but expansion is not the same as embeddedness.

The Booth Machine and the Local Memory of Power

A TMC worker often knows who received Lakshmir Bhandar, whose health card was used, whose son migrated, whose daughter needs a scholarship, whose land dispute is pending, whose name may have been cut from the voter list, whose family is angry, and who must be persuaded before polling day. This knowledge is not always benign. It can become pressure, intimidation, cut money and local capture. But electorally, it is an information advantage. BJP may have central leaders, digital campaigns, money, Hindutva messaging and national media amplification. TMC has local memory.

This is why the party's pre-counting focus on agents, booth-level vigilance and constituency-level instructions matters. Elections in Bengal are not merely voting-day events; they are organisational wars from voter list to counting table. TMC understands that politics is not only mood but machinery. BJP has a machine too, but in many areas, especially South Bengal and rural belts where TMC controls much of the panchayat structure, the challenger still lacks the intimate everyday presence that turns anger into votes.

The sixth chapter is Bengali identity. BJP's "double engine" pitch has run into TMC's "Bengal versus outsider control" pitch. The outsider argument is sometimes dismissed as regional chauvinism, but in Bengal it taps into a long cultural memory: language, literature, food, festivals, refugee histories, syncretic traditions, rural folk cultures, urban bhadralok pride and suspicion of northern political templates. The controversies cited in the uploaded documents - Bengali being described in a Delhi Police communication as a "Bangladeshi language," Bengali-speaking migrant workers being treated as Bangladeshis in some BJP-ruled contexts, and food-policing anxieties around fish and meat - have given TMC symbolic fuel.

Bengali Identity Against the Outsider Frame

Bengal's cultural politics is complex because the same voter may worship Durga, eat fish, celebrate Eid with neighbours, visit a Jagannath temple, admire Netaji, recite Tagore, watch football and distrust communal policing. TMC has understood this better than BJP. Its support for Durga Puja committees, the Digha Jagannath temple project, and Hindu cultural events is not a shift to Hindutva; it is an attempt to prevent BJP from monopolising Hindu identity. The message is: Bengal can be deeply Hindu in cultural practice without becoming majoritarian in political temperament.

This soft religious patronage blunts the BJP's attempt to label TMC anti-Hindu. It tells Hindu voters that they do not need BJP to protect Durga Puja, temple devotion or Bengali Hindu culture. At the same time, TMC maintains its minority support by presenting Bengal's Hindu practice as plural, festive and local rather than exclusionary. This is a delicate balance, but so far it has worked well enough to limit BJP's statewide polarisation dividend.

The seventh chapter is the BJP's central weakness: it has not answered the question, "Who will run Bengal?" Narendra Modi remains BJP's biggest campaigner and most recognisable national brand. But a state election finally asks a state question. Modi will not sit in Nabanna. Amit Shah will not run district administration. BJP has strong Bengal leaders - Suvendu Adhikari, Dilip Ghosh, Sukanta Majumdar, Samik Bhattacharya and others - but the party has not projected a single undisputed chief ministerial face with the emotional clarity Mamata possesses.

Why BJP Falls Short

This leadership vacuum matters because anti-incumbency needs a destination. A voter angry with TMC must be able to imagine a government after TMC. The BJP has often offered anger but not enough local reassurance. Its leadership has appeared fragmented: Suvendu as combative opposition face, Dilip as original grassroots BJP voice, Sukanta or Samik as organisational heads, and the central leadership as the real authority. This creates reach but not emotional certainty. TMC has one answer: Mamata. BJP has a committee.

The Chandra Kumar Bose factor, as described in the uploaded documents, is symbolic but significant. When Netaji's grandnephew and a former BJP figure joins TMC while saying BJP does not understand Bengal's soul, it reinforces the cultural legitimacy problem. One leader's movement does not decide elections, but symbols matter in Bengal. Netaji, Tagore, Vivekananda, Nazrul and the wider Bengal renaissance are not ornamental references; they are part of political identity. If BJP appears unable to inhabit that symbolic world naturally, TMC's outsider narrative gains strength.

The eighth chapter is why BJP's polarisation strategy has a ceiling. Hindu consolidation has helped BJP in many states and in parts of Bengal. It has delivered support in North Bengal, border belts, urban pockets and Matua-influenced areas. But Bengal is not a blank slate. It has religious anxieties, but also a strong linguistic and cultural self-conception. It has refugee memories, but also fear of documentation harassment. It has Hindu pride, but also discomfort with being told that Bengali food, language and social practice are suspect. A hard communal pitch may energise some voters but alienate others.

The documents point out that BJP's rhetoric around infiltrators, Rohingyas and Bangladeshis may deepen minority consolidation and unsettle Bengali cultural moderates. It can also worry Matuas and other borderland communities if citizenship promises remain entangled in paperwork. The CAA pathway, once a strong BJP promise, becomes a double-edged sword when beneficiaries do not experience swift, dignified, guaranteed citizenship. If a voter expected recognition but instead feels scrutiny, the promise turns into anxiety.

North Bengal remains important for BJP, and TMC cannot take it lightly. The hills, tea gardens, tribal belts, Rajbanshi areas and border districts are not uniformly pro-TMC. But the documents suggest that BJP's earlier momentum there has faced strains: unresolved questions about a permanent political solution in Darjeeling, delayed Gorkha sub-tribe recognition, labour anxiety in tea gardens and jute sectors, and frustration in refugee and Matua belts. BJP may still win several seats in these zones, but pockets of strength are not the same as a statewide majority.

The Third Force and the Limits of Anti-Incumbency

The ninth chapter is the Left-Congress factor. In 2021, Bengal became almost bipolar: TMC versus BJP. Many anti-TMC voters shifted to BJP because it appeared the only party capable of defeating Mamata. In 2026, the opposition space is more fragmented. CPI(M) is trying to recover youth, jobs and constitutional politics. Congress has campaigned in minority and border districts such as Malda and Murshidabad. Even if the Left and Congress do not win many seats, their presence matters in close contests. A three to five percent anti-TMC vote split can defeat BJP's hopes in several constituencies.

This helps TMC structurally. Some voters who dislike TMC but fear BJP may return to the Left or Congress. Some educated urban voters angry over corruption, recruitment scams or RG Kar may not want to vote BJP. Some minorities may prefer Congress locally but still consolidate behind TMC where BJP is the main challenger. The result is that BJP's anti-incumbency pool is not fully consolidated. TMC benefits when opposition anger is morally loud but electorally divided.

The tenth chapter is development data and the argument against collapse. BJP has tried to present Bengal as lawless, jobless and economically broken. TMC's counter is that Bengal is not a Gujarat-style industrial state, but it is not an economic desert. The uploaded documents refer to growth in state domestic product since 2011, per capita GSDP estimates around Rs. 1.71 lakh for 2023-24, unemployment rates lower than national figures in cited PLFS/NITI-linked accounts, strong agricultural cropping intensity around 184 percent, and tourism strength, including West Bengal's high rank in foreign tourist visits in 2024 and the global visibility of Durga Puja after UNESCO recognition.

Development, Data and the Counter-Narrative to Collapse

The Kolkata safety data cited in the documents also complicates the BJP's narrative. NCRB 2023 reportedly placed Kolkata among the safest major Indian cities for cognisable offences and relatively lower among metros for crimes against women. This does not erase RG Kar, Sandeshkhali, political violence or local intimidation. It does, however, allow TMC to respond to blanket claims of total lawlessness. The more accurate description is mixed: Bengal has serious governance failures, but it also has functioning welfare, agriculture, tourism, cultural economy, MSMEs, services, migration-linked remittances and urban professional sectors.

TMC also uses the central-deprivation argument. Disputes over MGNREGS and other central funds have been converted into a Bengal-rights issue. BJP says funds were withheld because of corruption and misuse; TMC says Delhi is denying Bengal its due. In a federal state with strong linguistic identity, this grievance resonates. It allows TMC to present welfare stress not only as a state-capacity problem but as central punishment. Whether every claim is accepted or not, the emotional frame is effective: Delhi is unfair, Didi is fighting.

And yet, the eleventh chapter is the most important one: TMC's vulnerabilities are real. The school jobs scam has damaged public trust deeply. It struck at the heart of educated Bengal's moral economy: the belief that study, merit and public recruitment can still produce dignity. When thousands of appointments are cancelled, when courts intervene, when tainted lists are discussed, and when genuine candidates feel cheated, the wound goes beyond one department. It tells young people that the system is rigged. If TMC wins, transparent recruitment must be its first governance reset.

The Real Anger Against TMC

The second vulnerability is syndicate raj. TMC's local embeddedness wins elections, but it can also become coercive control over construction, contracts, markets, clubs, small businesses, permissions and neighbourhood life. Cut money, intimidation, party-linked extortion and local arrogance may not operate everywhere, but where they do, they create intense resentment. This is the most dangerous contradiction in the TMC model: the same cadre who helps a beneficiary access welfare can also dominate the same family through fear. A fourth-term government cannot survive long-term if it protects such networks.

The third vulnerability is women's dignity. Sandeshkhali and RG Kar have created moral anger that no serious analysis can minimise. BJP may politicise these issues, but politicisation does not make the underlying pain false. For a party led by India's most prominent woman chief minister, and for a party whose electoral base rests heavily on women, this is an existential warning. TMC cannot celebrate Lakshmir Bhandar and tolerate the humiliation, insecurity or silencing of women by local strongmen, hospital systems, police indifference or party networks.

The fourth vulnerability is youth employment. Official unemployment rates may not be catastrophic in the cited data, but the deeper issue is quality employment. Too many young Bengalis depend on migration, low-paid service work, coaching-centre uncertainty, political brokerage, informal retail, delivery work, tuition, small gigs or repeated exam preparation. Welfare protects the poor, but jobs give dignity to the young. If TMC's next mandate does not become a jobs mandate, BJP or another opposition will eventually find a stronger opening.

The fifth vulnerability is education. Declining enrolment, school rationalisation debates, teacher vacancies, one-teacher schools, learning deficits and recruitment scandals together create a dangerous crisis. Bengal's political culture has always placed high value on education. If public education loses credibility, TMC loses a part of Bengal's soul. The next government must fill vacancies, create a credible recruitment calendar, protect viable rural schools, merge only where educationally justified, provide transport, digitise attendance, improve foundational learning and rebuild trust with teachers and parents.

This is why TMC's likely victory must become a governance reset. The 2011 model was built around ending Left rule, welfare expansion, street-fighter charisma, local party control and Bengali pride. The 2026 model must be different. It must be built around clean delivery, accountable administration, investment, productive welfare, school revival, transparent recruitment, women's safety, digital governance, MSME growth, skilling and urban renewal. The party cannot assume that because welfare has won this election, welfare alone will win the next one.

The Governance Reset Bengal Now Needs

The first reset should be from welfare to productive welfare. Lakshmir Bhandar, Kanyashree, Rupashree, Swasthya Sathi and Duare Sarkar must continue, but they must be connected to livelihoods. Every woman beneficiary who wants income should have access to SHG strengthening, Udyam registration, bank credit, digital payment training, e-commerce onboarding, local procurement opportunities and skill certification. Bengal should launch a Micro and Nano Enterprise Mission that links one crore women and youth to livelihood pathways, creates lakhs of nano enterprises in the first two years, and builds sector clusters in food processing, fishery, textiles, crafts, repair services, beauty and wellness, rural tourism, digital work, green products and local logistics.

The second reset should be recruitment credibility. Bengal needs an independent, technology-backed, court-proof recruitment architecture for teachers, police, health workers, clerks, engineers and local government staff. Every exam should have secure digital audit trails, public answer keys, time-bound grievance windows, third-party panel audits, annual vacancy calendars and strict punishment for political interference. This is not merely administrative reform. It is the moral repair of the state.

The third reset should be an anti-syndicate governance design. Speeches will not end syndicates; systems will. The government should introduce transparent e-tendering for smaller thresholds, online construction permissions, ward-level anti-extortion helplines, public dashboards of local contracts, strict policing of party-linked coercion, district ombudsmen for small business harassment and time-bound service delivery guarantees. The leadership must make visible examples of its own cadres. Without that, anti-incumbency will deepen beneath the surface.

The fourth reset should be a Women's Dignity and Safety Compact. Every police station should have functional women's help desks, trained personnel and accountability for refusal to register complaints. Sexual violence and political intimidation cases should be fast-tracked. There should be safe transport and lighting audits in towns, campuses, hospitals, haats and rural roads. Party functionaries facing credible prima facie allegations of violence against women should be suspended or expelled pending investigation. Survivor support must include compensation, counselling, relocation assistance where necessary and witness protection. This is not a public relations issue; it is the foundation of TMC's moral legitimacy.

The fifth reset should be an employment and investment compact suited to Bengal's own strengths. Bengal need not copy Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka or Telangana, but it must attract capital. Its route should be distributed productivity: IT and fintech in Kolkata, New Town, Siliguri, Durgapur-Asansol and Kharagpur; biotech and health-tech around Kolkata and Kalyani; agro-processing for rice, fish, fruit, vegetables, dairy and flowers; jute modernisation and technical textiles; engineering revival in Howrah and Durgapur-Asansol; logistics linked to ports and freight corridors; and tourism circuits around Durga Puja, Sundarbans, Darjeeling, Dooars, Murshidabad, Bishnupur and coastal Bengal. Bengal's advantage is culture plus people plus services plus agriculture plus small enterprise. The task is to make that high-productivity.

The sixth reset should be fiscal and administrative honesty. Welfare promises must be funded through better revenue collection, GST analytics, leak detection, property registration reform, mining and excise transparency, procurement efficiency, central dues litigation where justified, and disciplined borrowing. A state cannot build dignity only through schemes if it does not build fiscal capacity. Welfare without productivity becomes stress. Productivity without welfare becomes exclusion. Bengal needs both.

The seventh reset should be civic governance. Kolkata and Bengal's towns need cleaner drainage, waste management, safer transport, footpath discipline, hawker policy, flood resilience, heritage renewal, better public toilets, affordable rental housing and digital municipal services. Rural Bengal needs roads, irrigation, drinking water, school transport, health sub-centres, market access and climate resilience, especially in vulnerable regions such as the Sundarbans. The next phase of governance must be visible not only in bank accounts but also in streets, schools, hospitals and markets.

The final chapter, therefore, is not simply "TMC will win." It is "TMC will win, but victory will not be enough." BJP is likely to fall short because it has not overcome Mamata's leadership advantage, TMC's welfare memory, minority consolidation, women's support, booth organisation, Bengali identity politics, SIR-induced anxiety, opposition vote fragmentation and its own absence of a trusted local chief ministerial face. But TMC's win will be meaningful only if it treats the mandate as a warning wrapped in approval.

Conclusion: Victory as Responsibility

Bengal is not voting for perfection. It is choosing between two imperfect futures. One is a welfare-delivery state with corruption, local coercion and fatigue, but also familiarity, cultural rootedness and household-level benefits. The other is a powerful national party with central resources and ideological force, but still an under-specified Bengal model, unresolved leadership, cultural legitimacy problems and polarisation ceilings. In that comparison, Mamata Banerjee and TMC remain ahead.

Yet the future will not be kind to complacency. The voter who accepts Lakshmir Bhandar today may demand jobs for her son tomorrow. The girl who benefited from Kanyashree may demand a fair teacher recruitment exam. The family that used Swasthya Sathi may demand a safer hospital. The rural voter who trusts Didi against Delhi may demand protection against the local party strongman. The urban voter who rejects BJP's cultural aggression may still demand clean municipal governance. The minority voter who consolidates out of fear may eventually demand development beyond protection.

That is the true Bengal story of 2026. TMC's advantage is real because it is layered: welfare, women, minorities, Mamata, organisation, identity and opposition weakness. BJP's deficit is real because it is structural: no single Bengal face, uncertain welfare credibility, over-reliance on polarisation, outsider optics, fragmented local leadership and incomplete social trust. But TMC's next challenge is larger than defeating BJP. It must defeat the weaknesses within its own model.

If Mamata Banerjee wins again, she will not merely have retained power. She will have received one of the last great opportunities to transform Bengal's welfare state into a clean, productive, safe, employment-generating and culturally confident development state. The mandate will say that Bengal still trusts Didi more than Delhi. The responsibility will be to prove that Didi's Bengal can now trust institutions more than intermediaries, jobs more than patronage, justice more than party control, and governance more than election machinery. That is the reset Bengal will need after the victory.        

The author is a known academic, Pro Vice Chancellor of a Bengal based university, and Vice President of Global Media Education Council.

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