The by-election results in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, declared on Friday, held few surprises. Barely five months after the April Assembly elections, the ruling party in each State/UT won all five bypolls. What varied was the scale of victory. In West Bengal, the BJP retained Nandigram and wrested Rejinagar, with strong vote shares of 76% and 63%. In Puducherry, the ruling All India N.R. Congress also registered an emphatic win — 61% of the votes — in Thattanchavady. Nandigram and Thattanchavady were vacated by the Chief Ministers, which partly explains the strong wins. But the contests in Tamil Nadu were closer. Dharapuram and Madurantakam fell vacant after their AIADMK MLAs resigned and defected to the ruling TVK, which renominated them. Both won their seats back with 37% and 40% of the vote, respectively, leading the DMK rival candidates by about eight percentage points. By-elections tend to favour the party in power, as voters prefer representatives with access to government. But the variance between West Bengal and Tamil Nadu reflects the nature of contest in two similarly sized States but with vastly different political cultures.
In West Bengal, Assembly victories have for decades worked as a winner-take-all mandate, which the ruling party extends to panchayat and by-elections. The pattern took shape during the Left Front’s long rule, became entrenched during the Trinamool Congress’s 15 years in power and is visible in the BJP’s tenure so far. In these contests, Opposition parties have performed far worse than in Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. In Tamil Nadu, however, a three-way contest now has kept politics competitive. The wins have helped the TVK improve its tally to 109 in the House with a sanctioned membership of 234, but the narrow margins, despite a no-holds-barred campaign by Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay, suggest that the expected honeymoon effect did not fully materialise. The DMK, now the TVK’s principal rival, has shown that it still has a solid base despite its abrupt defeat in May. For the AIADMK, finishing third in the seats it won in May only deepens worries about its decline. Its leadership will now face sharper questions about whether it can hold on to its legislators. Four more AIADMK MLAs had joined the TVK and their seats will go to bypolls. This is a regressive turn in Tamil Nadu. MLAs are resigning barely months, sometimes days, into their terms to share in the loaves and fishes of office and the ruling party re-fields them. This defeats the spirit of the anti-defection law and overrides the Assembly election mandate. That the electorate rewarded these manoeuvres should worry anyone who is concerned about the quality of representation.
Published – October 13, 2026 12:20 am IST
