India, April 5 -- As West Bengal braces for the 2026 Assembly elections scheduled for April 23 and 29, a quiet but profound political realignment is underway. Assessments, circulating in political circles, project the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) securing between 125 and 136 seats out of 294. This is no modest uptick from the 77 seats won in 2021; it signals a potential breach of the 148-seat majority threshold if alliances and independents align favourably.

What makes this projection intellectually compelling is not mere arithmetic, but the geography and sociology of the shift, the very Bhadralok heartlands. Hooghly, Howrah and South Kolkata long considered intellectual bastions, which supported Left parties, Mamta Bannerjee and averse ...