May 25, 2026

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MAKING BENGAL A MAGNET FOR INDUSTRY

Suvendu Adhikari could not have ushered in the new era in Bengal poli tics on a better day-May 9, 2026, the 165th birth anniversary of poet laureate Rabindra nath Tagore. And the new chief minister and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made the most of it, from the portrait of Tagore on the stage and Rabindra Sangeet during the swearingin ceremony to Suvendu's visit to Jorasanko Thakurbari, Tagore's ancestral home, where he paid floral tributes to the `kabiguru' and recited his poem, `Chitto jetha bhoy shunyo (where the mind is with out fear)'. `Bhoy' (fear), he echoed Union home minister Amit Shah's words, had now given way to `Bhorosha' (trust).The occasion is heady enough for Suvendu to wax eloquent. The 55-year-old is the ninth over- all and the BJP's first chief minister of Bengal, handing the saffron party its final prize in the east, that too with an astounding 207-seat majority in a House of 294. Gone is the divisive, acrimonious rhetoric of the poll campaign, and in its place is a calmer, more inclusive language. "Now, I am CM, I belong to everyone." "It is not `I', it is `we, we, and we'." "This is a government `of the people, by the people, for the people', not `for the party'."But Suvendu will need more than words to honour the weighty mandate he has been given. He may have been the architect of the Nandigram agitation and the subsequent rise of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), but development has long been held hostage to politics in Bengal, first under 34 years of Left rule, then playing second fiddle to Mamata Banerjee's welfare architecture for 15 years. It has left the state without any industry, and its youth deprived of job opportunities. Doles and welfare schemes can take you only so far, as Didi discovered, and though the BJP intends to continue down that road, it will have to balance welfare expansion with fiscal discipline. Equally challenging will be the task of curbing

FROM SCREENPLAY TO STATECRAFT

In his very arrival, C. Joseph Vijay wrought change on Tamil Nadu's polity-in a tense few days marked by both sparks of confrontation and gestures of rapprochement. That duality was guaranteed by the very nature of his victory. A euphoric one, but at 108 seats, his Tamizhaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) was 10 short of majority. He could no longer be the Outsider to the political system. He needed its support. The ensuing chain of events threatened to strain harmony across the board. Each party that came forward to back him had to endure discord to do so.The Congress had to decide to ditch long-time ally Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK); the Left and the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) took time to shed their reluctance and, finally, even a sizeable chunk of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) defied the party whip and cross-voted in the TVK's floor test on May 13. Tamil politics is braced for aftershocks, while `Thalapathy' Vijay got a comfortable buffer of 144 MLAs in a 234-member House.The uncertainty behind him, one of the first major statements the new chief minister made was to accuse the previous DMK regime of leaving Tamil Nadu with an "empty treasury" and a mountain of debt. The DMK hit back almost immediately, with former chief minister and party president M.K. Stalin responding that the "money was there...what was required was efficiency and the political will to deliver". Ordinarily, such an exchange would have set rolling a phase of acrimony. Instead, Vijay surprised everyone by going to meet Stalin soon after. He also met other senior leaders, including Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) chief Vaiko, Anbumani Ramadoss of the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), and Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) boss Seeman. He had made his point, bought time by pointing to the allegedly damaged system he had inherited, and then chosen to present an image of respectful civility.Civility may soon be in short supply within the AIADMK, though, and that has to do with how things led up to the scenes in the assembly on May 13. The Congress and other supporting parties added 13 MLAs: that put the TVK's nose only just above water. Real oxygen had to wait till 25 of the AIADMK's 47 MLAs, led by C. Ve. Shanmugam, came on board, heedless to warnings from party chief Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS). Vijay had met Shanmugam the previous evening to confirm this little mutiny, indications that he's a fast enough learner in politics.If anything, the opening session was an indicator that governance in Tamil Nadu is a jigsaw puzzle where many things have to fall in place. For the TVK, now that political accommodation is done, foremost among these would be administrative continuity. The party may have come to power as an outsider force, but it now has to work with institutions, bureaucracies and political networks shaped over decades by the Dravidian parties. Vijay's outreach to rivals and veterans, therefore, appears significant, aimed at reassuring both the establishment and the electorate. Leaders across party lines praised Vijay for the gesture. "It was something new in the recent political history of Tamil Nadu," says VCK legislator Vanni Arasu.