From Haryana to West Bengal – how PM Modi widened BJP’s footprint since 2014 | India News
New Delhi: After the Congress lost seven states in 1967, a popular saying went that one could travel by train from Delhi to Howrah without passing through a Congress-ruled state.After nearly six decades, the Bharatiya Janata Party has turned the tide on its head by saying that the journey from Haryana’s Chandigarh to Howrah will now only pass through the BJP-ruled state.After an unprecedented victory in West Bengal on May 4, Subhendu was sworn in as Adhikari Chief Minister, giving the BJP its first government in the state and marking the ninth state where the party has installed a BJP chief minister for the first time since Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014.The BJP’s expansion began with its victory in Haryana and Maharashtra assembly elections in 2014, followed by Assam and Arunachal Pradesh in 2016, Manipur in 2017, Tripura in 2018, Odisha in 2024, Bihar in 2026 and now West Bengal.
In Haryana, the BJP formed its own government for the first time and appointed Manohar Lal Khattar as the Chief Minister.In Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis became the state’s first BJP chief minister after the party emerged as the single-largest party in the assembly elections and formed the government with allies in the Mahayuti alliance.The BJP expanded its footprint in the Northeast by winning Assam in 2016, where Sarbananda Sonowal became the party’s first Chief Minister in the state.Since then, the BJP has retained power in Assam, winning two consecutive assembly elections, including one held in April.The same year, the BJP formed its first full-fledged government in Arunachal Pradesh after a major political reshuffle.In July 2016, Congress leader Pema Khandu became the Chief Minister amid a prolonged political crisis. Two months later, he and most Congress MLAs joined BJP’s ally Arunachal People’s Party.In December that year, Khandu and 33 MLAs defected to the BJP, giving the party a clear majority and its first stable government in the state.The BJP earlier led a brief government in Arunachal Pradesh in 2003 under former Chief Minister Gegong Apang. Apang left the Congress and joined the BJP, but his government lasted only 44 days before returning to the Congress.
In 2017, the BJP formed a post-election alliance with the National People’s Party, Naga People’s Front and regional parties in Manipur to install N Biren Singh as Chief Minister, marking the party’s first government in the border state.A year later, the BJP formed its first government under Biplab Kumar Deb, ending decades of Left Front rule in Tripura.The party registered another major breakthrough in eastern India by defeating the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha in 2024. Mohan Charan Majhi was then sworn in as the first BJP Chief Minister in the state, ending Naveen Patnaik’s uninterrupted tenure of 24 years.Also read: BJP’s Bharat Joro Yatra: From 7 to 22 states, how BJP reshaped India’s political mapIn Bihar, where the BJP has long been part of a coalition government led by Nitish Kumar, the party did not have its own chief minister until 2026.Nitish, who served as chief minister multiple times over two decades with brief interruptions, resigned earlier this year and moved to the Rajya Sabha. After his exit, the BJP appointed Samrat Chaudhary as the party’s first Chief Minister in the state.
With the victory in West Bengal, the BJP has now formed the government in another state that has long been considered politically elusive for the party. BJP won 207 out of 294 assembly seats.The party’s rise across eastern and northeastern India has also reflected a broader political shift over the past decade. Once widely seen as a Hindi-heartland force, the BJP has steadily expanded into areas where it historically had little organizational presence, benefiting from a mix of organizational growth, welfare expansion, leadership projection, and the collapse or fragmentation of opposition parties.BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawala said the party’s expansion under Prime Minister Modi reflected the growing acceptance of its governance model and people.“Under Prime Minister Modi’s leadership, the BJP and NDA have steadily expanded their political footprint across India in terms of governance, performance and delivery. States that never had a BJP government or a BJP chief minister before elected BJP governments after Modi became Prime Minister,” he said.“Prime Minister Modi has now become synonymous with pro-incumbency. In recent elections, BJP-NDA governments have been voted back to power in states like Assam and Puducherry, while several opposition-ruled state governments have faced anti-incumbency,” he added.With West Bengal now joining its ranks, the rise of the BJP marked one of the most significant political expansions in post-independence India — transforming the party from a largely Hindi-heartland power into a dominant pan-India political machine.
