"Where have all the Bhadralok gone?" asked one of my editors sarcastically when I said that the BJP might sweep the 2024 Lok Sabha election in Bengal after watching the exit poll trends, which predicted a clear edge for the BJP over the Trinamool Congress (TMC). Although sarcastic, his voice reflected a concern as well as disbelief that the Bengali Bhadralok, shaped by their century-long cultural practices, would accept BJP’s Hindutva politics, which was largely considered alien on Bengal soil.
However, the myth has now been busted. In the recently concluded 2026 assembly polls, the Bhadralok largely swung to the BJP, marking a new beginning in Bengal politics. The state witnessed an unprecedented Hindu consolidation, with the Bhadralok playing a significant role.
A look at the Presidency region adjoining Kolkata , which is considered the Bhadralok bastion in the state, reveals the change. Long considered a TMC citadel, the Presidency region this time elected the BJP in a majority in four out of five districts.
While the BJP won 208 of the 294 seats in the Assembly election, reducing the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC to 80 seats , it is the saffron party's victory in the Presidency region that is the most interesting.
The victory of BJP candidate Swapan Dasgupta from Rashbehari, a Bengali Bhadralok bastion and fortress of the TMC, underlines the swing in this election.
As a person who grew up in a middle-class Bengali family, this shift seemed interesting to me for two reasons. One, the Bhadralok have had a long trajectory, influenced by Congress's secular tradition, and later the Left's party system and cultural Marxism. Drawing influence from existing literary works, music, films, and theatre, the section formed the backbone of Bengal’s politics. Although the TMC did not offer a major intellectual boost to them, a part of them witnessed the rise of a ‘neo-left’ with a bit of subaltern touch with Mamata Banerjee ’s emergence.
Secondly, growing up in a middle-class family in the suburbs of Kolkata, I saw my family members, relatives, neighbourhood, and friends being sceptical of the BJP, partly because of its Hindutva push and partly because it was considered unfamiliar to Bengal’s soil. Scepticism persisted in urban spaces even after the party’s rise in 2019 and 2021, due to its lack of an ideological base and cadre in South Bengal.
So, how did the tables turn? A party that was nowhere to be seen in the political circles, how did it manage to win over the state’s dominant section? Let’s dive deeper. However, first, have a glance at the definition of Bhadraloks.
WHO IS A BENGALI BHADRALOK?
In her book, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-1947, scholar Joya Chatterji referred to Bhadralok as a "rentier class" that emerged because of the permanent settlement ecosystem, launched by the British government in Bengal. Earning their livelihood from the rents of the land, some of the Bhadralok got modern education (English education to be precise) and later became a significant force in shaping the political and party systems in the state since the pre-Independence days.
Much water has flowed down the Ganges since those early days, and the contemporary Bhadralok no longer perfectly mirrors the history books. Yet, their influence on the state's political landscape remains undeniable. To understand their current role, we can identify them as a socially forward community—one deeply shaped by distinct cultural practices and structurally dominant in the service class.
UNEMPLOYMENT, MIGRATION IN WEST BENGAL , AND BHADRALOK'S DISAPPOINTMENT
"Bengal is an old-age home. It has nothing today," said one of my friends a year back when I visited him during my annual homecoming tour from Delhi.
And he was not alone. The majority of the present-day educated Bengali youth echo the same disappointment as my friend.
Data shows that the growth rate of the industrial and service sector stood at 6.6% from 2012-2020, lower than 7.7% in the national scenario. The unemployment in urban and rural areas increased to 4.9% and 3.5% in urban and rural areas during 2018-2019. The per capita income, which was growing at a faster rate than the national scale during the last two decades of Left rule, fell sharply during Mamata Banerjee's 15-year tenure.
"I don’t think the shift towards the BJP happened solely because of the aggressive Hindutva politics. The answer lies in the rising anti-incumbency factors against the TMC," Sayantan Ghosh, a professor at St. Xavier's College and writer of the book Battleground Bengal, told India Today Digital. He added that the BJP projected itself as a party capable of bringing large-scale investment and development in the state, which was accepted by the Bhadralok.
Snigdhendu Bhattacharya, a journalist who has closely followed Bengal’s politics for a long time, told India Today Digital, "The migration did play a role against the Trinamool Congress. No big industry has come to the state in the last 1…
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9 reports
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