NEW DELHI: After the Congress lost seven states in 1967, there was a popular saying that one could travel to Howrah from Delhi by train without passing through any of the Congress-ruled states.Nearly sixty years later, the BJP has reversed this narrative and taken a different approach, saying that the journey from Chandigarh, Haryana, to Howrah can now only pass through the BJP-ruled state.Suvendu Adhikari was sworn in as chief minister after a landslide victory in West Bengal on May 4, giving the BJP its first government in the state and the ninth state where the party has appointed a BJP chief minister since Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014.The BJP’s expansion began with victories in the Haryana and Maharashtra assembly elections in 2014, followed by Assam and Arunachal Pradesh in 2016, Manipur in 2017, Tripura in 2018, Odisha in 2024, Bihar in 2026 and now West Bengal.
In Haryana, the BJP formed a government on its own for the first time and appointed Manohar Lal Khattar as chief minister.In Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis became the state’s first chief minister of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which emerged as the single largest party in the assembly elections and formed the government with allies in Mahayut’s alliance.In 2016, the BJP won Assam, expanding its influence in the northeast, and Sarbananda Sonowal became the party’s first chief minister in the state.The BJP has since remained in power in Assam and won two consecutive parliamentary elections, including one in April.In the same year, the Bharatiya Janata Party formed its first formal government in Arunachal Pradesh after a major political reorganization.In July 2016, Congress leader Pema Khandu became chief minister amid a protracted political crisis. Two months later, he and most of the Congress MPs joined the Arunachal Janata Party, a BJP ally.In December of the same year, Khandu and 33 MLAs switched to the BJP, giving the party an absolute majority and establishing the first stable government in the state.In 2003, the Bharatiya Janata Party briefly led the Arunachal Pradesh government under former chief minister Gegong Apang. Apang quit the Congress and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, but his government lasted only 44 days before returning to the Congress.
In 2017, the BJP formed a post-poll alliance with the National People’s Party, Naga People’s Front and Manipur regional parties to appoint N Biren Singh as chief minister, marking the party’s first government in the border state.A year later, the BJP ended the Left Front’s decades-long rule in Tripura and formed its first government under the leadership of Biplab Kumar Deb.In 2024, the party achieved another major breakthrough in eastern India, defeating the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha. Mohan Charan Majhi was then sworn in as the BJP’s first chief minister in the state, ending Naveen Patnaik’s 24-year uninterrupted tenure.Also read: BJP’s Bharat Jodo Yatra: From 7 to 22 states, how the BJP is redrawing India’s political mapIn Bihar, where the BJP has long been part of the coalition government led by Nitish Kumar, the party won’t have its own chief minister until 2026.Nitish served as chief minister for several terms with brief interruptions over more than two decades before resigning earlier this year and being transferred to the Rajya Sabha. Following his departure, the BJP appointed Samrat Choudhary as the party’s first chief minister in the state.
With its victory in West Bengal, the BJP has now formed a government in another state long considered politically elusive for the party. The BJP won 207 of the 294 parliamentary seats.The party’s rise in eastern and northeastern India also reflects a larger political shift over the past decade. Once seen as a force in the Hindi heartland, the BJP has steadily expanded into areas where it historically had little organizational presence due to organizational growth, welfare outreach, leadership projection, and the decline or fragmentation of opposition parties.Bharatiya Janata Party national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said the party’s expansion under Prime Minister Narendra Modi reflected its governance model and growing public acceptance.“Under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, the BJP and the NDA have continued to expand their political footprint in India on the basis of governance, performance and delivery. After Modi became Prime Minister, countries that had never had a BJP government or a BJP chief minister before elected a BJP government,” he said.“Prime Minister Modi has now become synonymous with being pro-incumbent. In the recent elections, the BJP-NDA governments in states like Assam and Puducherry returned to power, while governments in several opposition-ruled states faced anti-incumbency governments,” he added.With the addition of West Bengal, the BJP’s rise marked one of India’s most important post-independence political expansions – transforming the party from a largely Hindi-speaking heartland force into a dominant pan-India political machine.
