India, May 9 -- The Bharatiya Janata Party has broken the Trinamool Congress (TMC)'s 15-year hold over West Bengal, netting more than 200 seats in the 294-strong assembly in the recent polls.

The BJP vaulted from 77 seats to 207, while the TMC's share of seats fell from 215 to 80 - almost a mirror image of the 2021 result. The BJP got 45.84% of the vote, up from 38.15% in 2021, while the TMC's vote share fell from 48.02% to 40.8%. Smaller parties picked up six seats, up from one in 2021.

The Bengal polity remains bipolar. What made the difference this time was not what the smaller parties achieved. It is attributable to the sharp drop in the TMC's vote share (almost 8%) and the sharp increase in the BJP's vote share (around 7.5%).

This...