West Bengal poll results: A new era for India-Bangladesh relations?

On the morning West Bengal’s votes were counted, television screens across the border in Dhaka, Khulna and Rajshahi flickered with flash news. For perhaps the first time in recent memory, the outcome of a state election in India was being watched in Bangladesh with the kind of anticipation usually reserved for domestic politics.

“I don’t think the people of our country ever waited for the poll results from Bengal like this time,” Rubayat Mannan Rafi, executive director of the civil society platform The Bangladesh Dialogue, told THE WEEK. “It is a tumultuous time for India-Bangladesh relationship, and many people are cautiously watching the election result.”

As early trends began to stabilise, it became clear that the BJP’s strongest gains were coming not from the state’s political centres but from its edges—from constituencies like Mathabhanga, Sitalkuchi, Sitai, Dinhata, Natabari and Tufanganj in Cooch Behar district, to Kumargram, Kalchini and Alipurduars in Alipurduar district further north, and stretching southwards into pockets of Nadia, Malda and North 24 Parganas districts that lie along the Bangladesh border. In these districts, migration, identity and security are not distant policy debates; they are lived realities.

The scale of the shift was visible in victory margins. In Cooch Behar Uttar, the BJP won by over 60,000 votes, while in Kalchini the margin crossed 30,000. But these signals of consolidation were not visible everywhere. Seats like Sitai and Dinhata—where the Trinamool Congress and the BJP, respectively, won with narrow margins—reflected the continued complexity of local politics.

What makes these margins politically significant is that in several constituencies, the number of disputed or ineligible voters flagged during the revision of electoral rolls was comparable to, or even exceeded, the final victory margins.

For years, the border in these regions has been in an evolving condition—porous in parts, contested in others. Nearly 112 kilometres remain unfenced, interrupted by rivers and unresolved land issues. This ambiguity has not just helped cross-border movement, but also created space for competing narratives. The BJP chose to turn the ambiguity into its central electoral argument. “If the BJP comes to power in Bengal, not even a bird will be able to cross the border,” Union Home Minister Amit Shah said during the poll campaign.

According to Shah, delays in fencing the border were political rather than logistical. “Wherever fencing work was stopped, it was because the state government did not cooperate. Once the BJP forms the government, we will complete border fencing at a fast pace and secure every inch,” he said.

The issue of illegal immigration became the emotional anchor of the BJP campaign. It resonated strongly in border districts, where demographic shifts, economic competition and security concerns often intersect. Rafi points out that Bangladesh has witnessed its own version of borderland politics. “During our last election in Bangladesh, we saw how the right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami got a landslide victory in our border areas like Satkhira, Bagerhat, Chapainawabganj,” he said. “They tried to create panic and projected themselves as the only solution.”

Asif bin Ali, an Atlanta-based geopolitical analyst, places the Bengal verdict within the larger trend of border regions becoming politically charged spaces. “The pattern across Bangladesh and West Bengal is not simply about religion entering electoral politics; it is religion fused with economic anxiety, anti-elite resentment, and borderland insecurity,” he said.

Frustrations in West Bengal have been building over time. Concerns around jobs, industry and local governance went beyond ideological lines. Mamata Banerjee’s welfare and pro-minority politics retained significant support, but it could not fully address the deeper anxieties.

“The BJP’s performance should not be read only as a victory of hindutva; it is also the political harvesting of accumulated resentment,” Ali said. “It converted the grievances into an identity-based mandate.”

Tathagata Roy, former Tripura and Meghalaya governor, told THE WEEK that the incoming government’s approach to the border would need to be both urgent and structural. “Border management is not just about putting up fences, it requires administrative alignment between the Centre and the state, better intelligence coordination and a clear policy intent. That alignment has been missing so far,” he said.

According to him a firm and consistent approach is needed to address the long-standing problem of infiltration along the Bangladesh border. “Once the border is effectively secured and infiltration is checked, it will bring a sense of stability in the border districts, where people have lived with uncertainty for decades,” Roy said.

Across the border, Mamata Banerjee has long been viewed with a mix of warmth and frustration. “People of our country have had a soft corner towards Mamata,” Rafi said. “But on the other side, we used to get an impression that she has been blocking the Teesta deal for the past few years.”

The Teesta water-sharing agreement has remained stalled for years, symbolising the limits of India’s federal structure in shaping foreign policy outcomes. “Some experts had a feeling that because of Mamata, we couldn’t establish a healthy relationship with the Indian government,” Rafi said.

The BJP’s victory could alter that equation significantly. “This is the first time we would see aligned policies between the Union government and the state government of West Bengal. It would ease the implementation of the policies of the Centre,” he said.

But the alignment carries risks. “From Bangladesh’s perspective, the BJP’s rise in West Bengal could turn ‘illegal immigration’ from a campaign slogan into a serious bilateral flashpoint,” Ali said. “If this issue is handled through identity politics rather than evidence and diplomacy, it can strain not only Bengal-Bangladesh ties but the wider India-Bangladesh relationship.”

The 1996 Ganga Water Treaty, a 30-year agreement set to expire in December 2026, is already due for a renewal of discussions between India and Bangladesh. The long-pending Teesta agreement could also see fresh momentum under the new political alignment.

“A BJP-led West Bengal will make border management more complicated,” Ali said. “But it may also remove one layer of federal resistance on water diplomacy.”