From Mumbai To Bengal, And Down South: The Elections To Come In 2026

A surprise vice-presidential election sandwiched between polls in Delhi and Bihar - all three won by the Bharatiya Janata Party - and garnished with bitter fights over voter fraud allegations, electoral reforms and a voter re-verification drive - were among the electoral highlights of 2025.

And more of the same is expected over the next 12 months, with elections in Assam, Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala likely to define and dominate debates on the BJP's poll-winning machinery and an opposition that can't stand united long enough to derail that freight train.

But the year will kick-off with civic body elections in Maharashtra on January 15, including the long-delayed Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation poll, the richest in the country.

Family first in Mumbai, Maharashtra

The first election of the year will see the ruling BJP-led Mahayuti take on the Maha Vikas Aghadi - a bloc of three unlikely allies, the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party, and the Shiv Sena that was formed in 2019 but now appears fragmented by political ideology and familial ties.

The central storylines for the BMC (and Pimpri-Chinchwad) polls are family reunions.

In Mumbai, cousins Uddhav and Raj will re-unite after a 20-year feud.

At stake in the former is a battle to reclaim Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray's legacy from Eknath Shinde - the rebel who broke ranks in June 2022, luring a gaggle of Sena MLAs into the BJP's arms and, in so doing, swung the sword that brought down Uddhav Thackeray's government.

In the latter, the big story is veteran politician Sharad Pawar and his ambitious nephew Ajit burying the hatchet after an acrimonious split in July 2023, a split that eerily echoed the Shinde-Sena row from 12 months earlier and underscored the reshaping of the state's political map.

The Thackeray and Pawar 'parivaar' stories have dropped the Congress - battered by the BJP in a majority of state and federal elections since 2014 - further into electoral limbo.

The Congress has made it clear it is unwilling to contest with Raj Thackeray, particularly after it ripped into the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena boss over the 'slapgate' issue in July 2025.

Across the aisle, the BJP-led Mahayuti is expected to canter to victory, though not without some questions over the future of the alliance. A strong showing by the BJP in December 2025 panchayat-level polls in the state suggest the party is consolidating its voter base, possibly to a point where it may not need help - either from Ajit Pawar or Eknath Shinde - to stay in power.

A repeat performance this month - with capture of the BMC as the crown jewel - will drive that point home and could leave the NCP and Sena chiefs contemplating their futures.

The Bengal, Assam tests

After Mumbai attention will turn eastwards to Bengal and Mamata Banerjee and her most ferocious test yet. The Trinamool Congress boss has led her party to a hat-trick of wins over the BJP, starting with the 2019 federal election, blocking its expansion into a state that, like Tamil Nadu and Kerala, has never submitted to a brand of muscular religious fundamentalism.

Mamata Banerjee will, again, be the focal point of the BJP's attacks, for the party knows it must take her down if it is to win Bengal. That strategy was evident in 2021, when the BJP poached her right-hand man, Suvendhu Adhikari, and then fielded him against her in Nandigram.

Ahead of this election Banerjee has positioned herself as the protector and champion of people's rights, frequently railing against the BJP-led central government on issues like the amendments to the Waqf laws and the voter re-verification drive.

The BJP, for its part, has ripped into its former ally (yes, Banerjee was once part of the party-led National Democratic Alliance), targeting her over corruption, border security, nepotism, and women's safety.

That positioning, analysts believe, is critical because it allows the Trinamool boss leeway to jump between regional and state issues, buttressing her credentials as a national leader and someone who can take over the Congress' leadership of the struggling INDIA bloc.

And that could mean a Mamata Banerjee tilt at the Prime Minister's post in 2029.

Expect fiery speeches, sensational allegations, and scurrilous comments in spades as heavyweights clash in Bengal and neighbouring Assam, where many of the same issues will feature prominently in poll campaigns, including the row over foreign nationals and 'infiltration'.

Over in Assam, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has established himself as one of the BJP's most dynamic regional leaders - combining administrative centrality with aggressive political messaging - and the de facto voice of the seven northeastern states.

But questions around ethnic representation, the implications of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act implementation, and shifting tribal alignments will make this contest unpredictable.

The opposition's challenge lies in crafting a counter-narrative that speaks to local pride while addressing economic anxieties. The emergence of smaller regional outfits could determine whether the anti-BJP vote remains fragmented or unites under a coherent alliance.

The Tamil Nadu, Kerala question

The BJP has never really understood the Tamil political landscape - dominated as it is by the Dravidian narrative and two parties, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. And that lack of understanding plays out in elections.

The national party has never won more than four Lok Sabha seats in a single election - that was in 1999 - and failed to win any in the last two. Its strike rate in state elections isn't better; the BJP has only had eight MLAs since the 1980s and drew blanks in 1989, 1996, 2011, and 2016.

For the BJP, therefore, Tamil Nadu holds outsized symbolic value. A victory here, or even a strong result - even a handful of seats - will boost the party's all-India 'Modi wave' narrative.

The storyline here, though, is not the BJP and it certainly isn't the Congress either.

It isn't even the ruling DMK and its arch-rival, the AIADMK.

The story is actor Vijay and his Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam. The hugely popular cinema star is bidding to follow the footsteps of other actor-politicians who struck it big, primarily AIADMK founder MG Ramachandran and his protege, J Jayalalithaa, both of whom were Chief Ministers.

Widely regarded as a dark horse, Vijay's poll campaign has been dramatic, if nothing else, with a stampede at a rally in Karur, at which 41 people died, almost derailing it before it began.

He set his targets early - the DMK is his 'political enemy' and the BJP his 'ideological enemy'. On the AIADMK he has, mostly, soft-pedalled, possibly looking to pick up its on-the-fence voters.

For the AIADMK, on an unprecedented run of poll losses to the DMK, this is critical. Defeat to Chief Minister MK Stalin, again, will amplify the crisis and fuel more internal bickering, one round of which was quelled by party boss E Palaniswami expelling KA Sengottaiyan.

Meanwhile, across the border in Kerala, the ruling Left front, led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's is angling for a third consecutive term, unheard of in the state's electoral history.

But the Congress-led opposition, the United Democratic Front, senses blood.

Vijayan's administration has increasingly battled high-profile corruption allegations and a raft of sex scandals in the state's film industry, and the UDF's strong performance in local body polls in December 2025, sets the stage for an intriguing showdown in the southern state.

And Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who took over brother Rahul Gandhi's Wayanad constituency, after he moved to Uttar Pradesh's Raebareli, will likely be tasked with ensuring the Congress wins.

The BJP is lurking here too. As with Tamil Nadu, Kerala has never taken to the saffron party, though that seems to be changing. In 2024 the party got its first ever Lok Sabha MP - courtesy actor Suresh Gopi - and, last month, it won control of Thiruvananthapuram municipal body.

Overall, however, the Left still has a disciplined organisation and a coherent ideology.

The road to 2029?

Taken individually, each of these state elections are just that - contests within widely disparate political theatres with very different actors and agendas.

Taken together, however, they are another step on the road to the 2029 federal election, an election that could either reaffirm the BJP's hold on state and central governments and, more importantly, allow it to focus just a little bit more on life beyond Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

For the Congress and its allies, the challenge is to convince voters of their 'shared political vision' - that of the INDIA bloc - and generate enough traction at the state level to genuinely worry the BJP.