The Year That Was: Can regional parties stay the course?

In India, regional parties are not mere footnotes to national politics; they lie at the heart of its bewildering but pivotal political diversity.

Outside the sphere of the two national political forces, these parties arise from specific landscapes — linguistic, social, historical — carrying aspirations that live far from Delhi. They can be myopic and obstructionist, corrupt or self-serving, but they can also be development-oriented and fierce guardians of regional pride. They complicate brute majorities, force negotiation, and convert geography into politics.

In many ways, 2026 is a test for regional politics.

Of the five states and Union territories set to go to the polls this year, two — West Bengal and Tamil Nadu — are governed by major regional parties; a third, Kerala, is more influenced by regional dynamics than national. Even in the only province where the contest is between national parties, Assam, the issues and campaign will decidedly be regional.

It is also a year of immense importance to the Opposition.

After its stellar performance in the 2024 general election, where it slashed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s tally by 60-odd seats and reduced it to a minority for the first time in a decade, the Opposition’s performance has been tepid, sabotaging itself in Haryana and losing big in Maharashtra, Delhi and Bihar. The successive state election losses not only buoyed the BJP, it also strengthened the perception that 2024 was a blip for the electoral juggernaut.

The states that go to the polls this year represent the last patch of electoral land that has resisted the BJP. Retaining control will be key for an Opposition struggling with a shrinking national footprint.

Five years ago, in the shadow of the pandemic’s brutal second wave, the BJP suffered an energy-sapping loss in West Bengal, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) established its supremacy in Tamil Nadu, and the Left kept itself alive in electoral politics with an unlikely victory in Kerala. In Assam, the BJP signalled its dominance in the northeast with a win that also heralded the rise of Himanta Biswa Sarma as chief minister. And in Puducherry, the NR Congress kept the National Democratic Alliance flag flying by trouncing the Congress.

A lot of ground has shifted in the years since.

In West Bengal, the BJP has established itself as the principal opposition party, far eclipsing the Congress and the Left. It has managed to push its pet issues — religious polarisation, infiltration, appeasement, infrastructure development — into the mainstream and establish itself as the only alternative to the Trinamool Congress (TMC).

The party will hope to cash in on anti-incumbency (the TMC has been in power here for 15 years), a sluggish economy and civic disarray to win the one state that is central to the party’s ideology — after all, Syama Prasad Mookerjee was the founder of the Jana Sangh, the predecessor of the BJP — but has consistently rebuffed its overtures.

This won’t be easy. Arguably the tallest regional opposition politician in the country, Mamata Banerjee has established a dense and locally rooted political organisation that she rules with an iron hand, a crucial lever in a state with high levels of political violence. She has created a network of welfare schemes that have bolstered her already-robust base among the poor. And she has strategically leveraged regional pride and Bengali culture to paint the BJP as outsiders and reiterate that no one has a deeper grassroots connection with the state than Didi.

In Tamil Nadu, meanwhile, the DMK will seek to return to power for the first time in its history. Chief minister MK Stalin has presided over a relatively stable term that saw the party emerge as a champion of federalism on the national stage, following multiple conflicts with the governor over contentious bills.

The party has done well in the state since the 2019 general election, but it faces a rejuvenated alliance of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the BJP. The other Dravidian major has been weakened by protracted infighting after the death of J Jayalalithaa, but it still has heft in the western and southern regions of the state and has a loyal following among powerful dominant castes. There are already signs of anti-incumbency ahead of an election that will also indicate whether there is any space for smaller players such as Vijay in the post-Karunanidhi, post-Jayalalithaa era.

In Kerala, both major forces are battling for survival. For the United Democratic Front that suffered a shock defeat in 2021, which also flipped the script of power largely changing hands every five years, success in the recent local body polls has been a shot in the arm. The Congress-led alliance will hope to paper over differences to put up a united fight. The Left will try its best to not lose the only state where it is in power, but chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan will be battling 10 years of anti-incumbency. The real unknown in this equation is the BJP, long relegated to the margins here, but with a spring in its step after winning the Thiruvananthapuram municipal polls.

In Assam, Sarma will hope to win the BJP a third consecutive term (the last person to rule the state for three straight terms was Congress chief minister Tarun Gogoi, once Sarma’s political mentor) in an election likely to be dominated by questions of illegal migration, socio-economic instability, Assamese culture and the controversial handling of singer Zubeen Garg’s death.

In Puducherry, the contest is expected to be largely between the NR Congress-BJP combine and the DMK-Congress alliance.

Elections are the lifeblood of India’s democracy. But what happens between and outside elections is also equally relevant. India will kickstart its census process in 2026, 15 years after the last count was completed. Thorny questions about delimitation and women’s reservation will creep closer. The halfway mark of prime minister Narendra Modi’s third term will fan questions about 2029.

Will India finally find a way to strike a balance between ecology and economy? Will it take the climate crisis as seriously as it takes its politics? Will young people get the jobs they need? The answer to these questions will also determine how 2026 turns out for India.