Five Assembly elections and what lies behind the results

31-05-202632 STORIES

In this issue

Suvendu Adhikari swearing-in

ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS 2026

Bengal’s silent tsunami

What began as a quiet undercurrent against the Trinamool’s misrule ended up as a silent tsunami as the BJP swept the Assembly election in West Bengal, winning 207 of 294 seats.

Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay

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Assembly Elections 2026

Editor’s note

ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS 2026

Dark horse wins race

In a stunning debut, Vijay the movie star secured a remarkable victory, besting two formidable Dravidian parties and marking a generational shift in voter preferences. Now all eyes are on Vijay the leader to see if he can stand tall and deliver.

Ilangovan Rajasekaran

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ASSEMBLY ELECTION 2026

Last Left citadel falls

A landslide United Democratic Front victory has ended a decade of Left rule in Kerala, leaving India without a communist-led State government for the first time in 50 years.

M.G. Radhakrishnan

HIMANTA BISWA SARMA

ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS 2026

Assam’s polarised mandate

The BJP secured a majority on its own in Assam, reaping the harvest of a campaign built on communal mobilisation on the one hand and direct cash transfers on the other.

Sushanta Talukdar

ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS 2026

No surprises in Puducherry

Despite its ally BJP’s lacklustre show, Chief Minister Rangasamy’s AINRC improves tally to power NDA to a decisive victory.

R.K. Radhakrishnan

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From the Sidelines

The satrap falls

The playbook of the BJP against regional powers is clear: ally, split, absorb, threaten, and finally replace. West Bengal, however, saw a direct battle, with anti-incumbency and a carefully curated electoral ground making the job easier for the saffron party.

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The broom needs cleaning too

The AAP may have a point when it charges the BJP with poaching its MPs as part of the much-reviled Operation Lotus, but it has much soul-searching to do, given its highly centralised leadership and ideological ambiguity.

A protester from Ladakh in New Delhi

An undemocratic arrangement for a restless Ladakh

The recent government announcement disaggregating Ladakh into seven districts not only threatens to undo regional political unity within Leh, but also, worryingly, reduces Muslims to a minority.

Elamaram Kareem

There’s no one to speak for the workers: Elamaram Kareem

The general secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions speaks about the anti-labour character of the Labour Codes and the spontaneity of protests as response to government policies and suppression by employers.

T.K. Rajalakshmi

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Crime, myth and the state

From folklore to digital platforms, Punjab has long mythologised its outlaws. A controversial docuseries, Lawrence of Punjab, highlights how that tradition is being repurposed in the age of organised crime.

Ashutosh Sharma

Central Ridge

Delhi’s ‘themed forests’ could suffocate its last green lung

The Forest Department’s plans to develop ecologically unsound themed forests in the Central Ridge spell doom not just for the 1.5-billion-year-old forest area but also for the national capital, which depends on the ridge for clean air.

Vedaant Lakhera

Pahalgam, one year on: Have we learnt any lesson?

India’s military posturing has not brought Pakistan to heel politically. The saffron establishment refuses to understand that dominance in arms does not ensure political leverage unless it is matched by engagement on the ground.

Mani Shankar Aiyar

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IFS and the imperial origin myth

Until recently, the MEA traced its roots to 1783 and the Foreign Department that served British imperial interests. But the IFS was formed in 1946 as an independent entity, built to serve a sovereign republic, not as a nostalgic extension of the Raj.

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Conference in the US

Imagining a ‘New India’ without Muslims

A conference in the US hosted by the Hudson Institute, dedicated to understanding the “new India”, did not merely misunderstand the country; it mirrored the very exclusions that define its current political trajectory.

Nuclear Deterrence

How Washington blew up nuclear restraint

The cumulative effect of the Israel-US war on Iran and the ongoing regional crisis in West Asia is to push more nations towards nuclear weapons, undermining the non-proliferation order that the US itself spent decades building.

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The Ethical Life

The importance of being Mohammad Deepak

In assuming a syncretic name while defending a Muslim man, Deepak Kumar affirmed the possibility of a dynamic, internally plural identity, sustained by a collective memory of interreligious sociability as intrinsic to the good life of a society.

Rajeev Bhargava

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Ken-Betwa’s first flood may arrive before the dam fills

Protests by tribal farmers over compensation and rehabilitation have once again raised questions about the human cost of the Ken-Betwa river-linking project, as well as its ecological impact, including on the Panna Tiger Reserve, a large part of which will be submerged.

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ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES

A strategic exit

There seems to be clear intent in the UAE’s recent decision to opt out of OPEC, even as it exploits a geopolitical moment to declare allegiance to the US-Israel axis and facilitate a diversification strategy.

C.P. Chandrasekhar

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At home in the world: Remembering Raghu Rai (1942-2026)

The legendary photojournalist who saw with a hawk’s eye and a velvet hand, and taught us that true seeing is darshan.

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Romila Thapar: doyenne and dissenter

The great historian came of age at the end of British rule in India. Now 94, she continues to defy a regime determined to forget the pluralism and dissent of India’s past.

No Man’s Land (2018-19), Lavanya Mani.

Art, interrupted and transformed

A Delhi exhibition curated by Gayatri Sinha invites unease by confronting viewers with the unresolved complexities of contemporary existence.

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COUNTER CULTURE

Raghu Rai: Recording a nation’s life

The photographer found himself at the scene of every turn in the nation’s fortunes, eyes behind the lens, finger on shutter, the desire to make art lying in the shadow of the desire to archive.

Prathyush Parasuraman

Kalyani Thakur Charal

How Kalyani Thakur Charal built a room outside the bhadralok world

The Bengali author proudly owns her Dalit identity and turns discrimination on its head by using it as the spur for her powerful poetry.

Amritesh Mukherjee

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South Asian studies

Asia’s age of barriers

A minutely researched account of the struggles of Indian migrants to re-establish their claims to citizenship across South and South-East Asia in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Raman Mahadevan

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Personal narrative

Inheritance of loss

Bhawana Somaaya’s Partition memoir captures the granular reality of displacement, the recurrent insecurity of a family uprooted from Karachi, and the grinding effort required to rebuild in Bombay.

Ranjana Sengupta

Narrative non-fiction

Cities of grief and memory

Part memoir, part travelogue, Ananya Vajpeyi’s book looks at cities as palimpsests of histories and geographies, both personal and collective.

Oxford

The art of remembering

The tug between fiction and essay, narrative and internal debate, animates the British writer Julian Barnes’ self-professed final book.

Sri Lankan village

Book of fools

The Sri Lankan author Ashok Ferrey’s latest is an utterly charming novel about the imperfect world and its imperfect people.

New books on the shelves

A novel on the lives of Black women in 1950s America, a muckraking investigation of the H-1B visa scam, and more.

Venice Beach

The photograph after the blink

My camera blinks, my eye sees, my brain perceives. You would think the job’s done, but that’s when the trouble actually begins.

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‘The Dystopian Times’ by Appupen

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