3 min readApr 23, 2026 06:05 AM IST First published on: Apr 23, 2026 at 06:05 AM ISTThe significance of the assembly elections in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal — all 234 seats in the former and 152 of 294 constituencies in the latter go to the polls today — cannot be located merely in the rhetoric on the campaign trail or the promises made in manifestos. Elections in both states come at a moment of broader political churn, where ideas and ideologies, both local and national, are being contested. For several decades, Tamil Nadu was a bipolar polity that operated under a broad ideological consensus — a legacy of the Dravidian movement. Since J Jayalalithaa died in 2016, the growing shadow of the BJP and now the entry of actor-politician Vijay’s TVK, the state’s politics is heading for a new paradigm. West Bengal, too, has not been ruled by the dominant party at the Centre since the late 1970s. The CPI(M) and Trinamool Congress were both not strictly regional in their outlook, but rather parties with a regional influence. Now, with the BJP as the primary opposition force, the politics of identity — religious, regional and national — is firming up in the state.Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin and the DMK are the incumbents with all the advantages that come with holding power. Yet, anti-incumbency has also held sway in the state. Within the AIADMK-led NDA, the BJP has become less strident since K Annamalai’s departure as state president. The X factor, though, is the TVK. As a film star, Vijay has a considerable following among the youth. While he has paid lip service to Dravidian ideals, the TVK’s ideological orientation remains fuzzy — it is on the plank of change that the party seeks to make inroads. In West Bengal, the TMC has sought to counter the BJP’s narrative of citizen vs “infiltrator”, Hindu vs Muslim, with an identity politics of its own. It claims that Bengali culture — culinary, linguistic and historical — is under threat from the BJP. The controversial SIR process has also cast a shadow, with a non-trivial number of erstwhile electors barred from voting. Tied to the elections, then, are questions of citizenship, belonging and federalism.AdvertisementThe campaign in both states has been polemical and at times, bitter and divisive. There have been announcements of more welfare disbursements, paeans to the benefits of a “double-engine sarkar” and denunciations of the many kinds of “outsider”. What has been missing, perhaps, are new ideas for governance in two of India’s largest states.