Legislative Assembly Elections 2026: Balancing Foreign Policy, SIR Voter Deletions, and Rising Communalism - FrontlineBookmarksSectionsFeaturesEssentialsPrint EditionCurrent IssuePast IssuesPublished : Mar 21, 2026 18:53 IST - 4 MINS READCOMMentsSHAREEven as the war in West Asia rages, begun by the US but its harrowing impact felt on lands and people far away from American lives, the Indian government is still struggling to articulate a foreign policy position that balances trading interests while staying ethical. Previous governments managed this jugglery with grace, but this dispensation is unable to distinguish between non-alignment, multi-alignment, and fawning compliance. And let us not even mention how regularly its raving keyboard warriors queer the pitch. These unpleasant notes, however, will now be drowned in the clamour of the upcoming Assembly elections in four States and one Union Territory.These are important elections, in which three States represent the last bastions resisting the saffron supremacy. Bengal’s Trinamool Congress government has kept the BJP out for 15 years, while in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the fiercely federal and secular DMK and Left alliance are fighting to retain power for a second and third term, respectively. Elsewhere, the BJP faces its first real challenge after 10 years of power in Assam, even as it hopes to do a Bihar in the Union Territory of Puducherry. This issue traces the broad trends emerging across the five regions, but two concerns infect these elections like a dark malaise: the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and rampant hate speech.The slipshod and suspicious way in which the SIR exercise has been implemented across the election-bound States has resulted in vast numbers of voters being deleted from the rolls. In West Bengal, for instance, 61.7 lakh names have been deleted while more than 60 lakh citizens are still “under adjudication”. The right solution now would be to allow the latter to vote and fix the clerical errors afterwards, but will the Chief Election Commissioner display the rectitude to do that? In fact, given the unseemly haste with which the SIR was pushed forward, it might be naïve to even expect it. As Suhrid Chattopadhyay writes, “In this election, the Trinamool’s fight is not just against traditional political rivals but also a nameless, faceless opponent in the form of the SIR.”The Centre displays a similar antagonism towards its citizens in Assam. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma continues to spew such vileness that any Election Commissioner with a modicum of decency would bar him from campaigning. Instead, Sarma, who once reserved his invective for Muslims of East Bengal origin (derogatively called Miya), has expanded his vitriol to Assamese Muslims as well. The pettiest example of this came when Sarma removed the name of former President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, an Assamese Muslim, from a medical college in Barpetta.If Tamil Nadu and Kerala are relatively bulwarked against the Islamophobia and divisiveness that is intrinsic to the BJP’s politics and to the Sangh’s larger goal of Hindu consolidation and dominion, it is because both societies have a long history of syncretism as well as social and economic progress. This has created a self-confident citizenry that does not need an external enemy to feel good about itself. The BJP, however, is a party that is dangerously good at long-term planning, and it has both the finances and the RSS cadres to see its plans through. In Tamil Nadu, for instance, besides teaming up with the now much weakened opposition party, the AIADMK, in the hope of ultimately replacing it in the event of an electoral victory, it also keeps lighting small communal fires everywhere, as it did in the Tiruparankundram temple in Madurai. Similar strategies are visible in Kerala, a long and slow process of attrition, as evident from the recent crossover of MLAs, even from the CPI, to the BJP.Unfortunately, on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s watch, brutish bigotry has long moved from the fringe to the mainstream, rendering meaningless any governance credits the party might brandish. The party high command and the Sangh Parivar might watch a Sarma’s excesses with fond pride today, but such sustained hatemongering has a way of bloodletting that can destroy all communities, regardless of religion. One does not have to look further than the raging war in West Asia to see how the politics of hostility will not be contained once self-obsessed leaders give it the oxygen to burn.CONTRIBUTE YOUR COMMENTSNew Story TitleAuthor NameJuly 17, 2024`; storyList.appendChild(newStoryItem); createDots(); dots = document.querySelectorAll(".dots .dot"); observer.observe(newStoryItem); } function removeStoryItem() { if (storyItems.length > 0) { storyList.removeChild(storyItems[storyItems.length - 1]); createDots(); dots = document.querySelectorAll(".dots .dot"); } }});]]>+ SEE all StoriesKey Questions & Insights(AIⓘ)1 /Sign in to Unlock member-only benefits!Bookmark stories to read later.Comment on stories to start conversations.Subscribe to our newsletters.Get notified about discounts and offers to our products.${ ind + 1 } ${ device }Last active - ${ la }