BJPThe elevation of Suvendu Adhikari as the first Chief Minister in West Bengal is the culmination of a campaign that brought success to the party in a state that had long been described as the “last frontier”.“Like the neighboring Northeast, the BJP’s eventual rise to power in West Bengal was led by a man who had joined the party from its staunch rival. officer switched Trinamool The Congress (TMC) defeated its former guru, TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, twice in December 2020 – first in her stronghold Nandigram in 2021 and later in her stronghold Bhawanipur in the recent assembly elections.

With Adhikari’s elevation, the BJP formally placed one of its most prominent recent entrants into power in West Bengal, underscoring the party’s continued reliance on “outsiders” to win politically difficult areas.

BJP’s success in West Bengal

Adhikari’s joining was among several defectors joining the BJP from Trinamool ahead of the 2021 West Bengal elections. With the BJP on the rise after winning a record 18 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2019 and battling “Didi” anti-incumbency after being in power for a decade, many TMC leaders joined the saffron camp, confident that there will be a change of power in Kolkata. However, this was not to be. BJP’s seat share in the 294-member assembly increased by just three to 77, but Trinamool won 215 constituencies to clinch victory for the third consecutive time. Due to this, many TMC parties returned to their parent party, and some BJP MLAs also changed sides.

Nevertheless, Adhikari stayed on and was appointed leader of the opposition in the assembly. He later became more aggressive in his attacks on Banerjee and TMC.In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP suffered another setback in West Bengal, where its seats dropped from 18 constituencies to 12, while the Trinamool Congress’ tally increased from 23 to 29. The state was one of several where the BJP lost ground, reducing its seats at the national level from 303 to 240 and forcing the party to depend on allies to form the government at the Centre.In the months that followed, the BJP regained momentum and won several state elections and ultimately won a landslide victory in West Bengal.

Bihar before West Bengal

Adhikari’s promotion comes less than a month after the promotion of Bihar Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary, who, like him, did not start his political career with the BJP. After earlier stints with Samata Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Chaudhary joined the party from Janata Dal (United) in 2017.Samrat Choudhary, son of veteran politician Shakuni Choudhary, replaced JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar, who had led the state for more than two decades. After the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was re-elected with a landslide victory in the Bihar elections in November 2025, Kumar returned as CM for a record 10th time, with Choudhary serving as one of his deputies.

However, there were already signs of a leadership change. Apart from Kumar’s declining health, the BJP became the largest party in Bihar for the first time, making the change of power in Patna a question of “when”, not “if”.

That “when” was answered when Kumar announced last month that he would return to Parliament through the Rajya Sabha, paving the way for the BJP to take over as chief minister in Bihar for the first time.

BJP’s dominance in the North-East

Before the BJP’s entry in West Bengal and emergence as the largest party in Bihar, it was the Northeast that the party first turned into a stronghold, starting with its victory in Assam in 2016.Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is widely seen as the architect of this dominance in the northeast. Sarma, a former Congress leader who joined the BJP in 2015, played a key role in the party’s Assam victory the following year. While Sarbananda Sonowal became the first BJP chief minister in the state, Sarma took over after the party retained power in 2021, with Sonowal moving to the Union Cabinet. In the recent assembly elections, the BJP under Sarma won 82 seats in the 126-member assembly, crossing the majority mark on its own for the first time and securing its third consecutive term in power. Like Sarma, several sitting or former chief ministers of the BJP in the Northeast had joined the party shortly before rising to the top post. For example, Pema Khandu, Manik Saha and N Biren Singh, among others, were in the Congress before switching to the BJP in 2016, but later led BJP governments in their respective states.

Exception

However, the strategy of inducting outsiders and promoting them to key positions has not worked for the BJP in every politically difficult state.In Punjab, former Congress MP Sunil Jakhar joined the BJP in May 2022 and was appointed president of the party’s state unit a little more than a year later. However, this strategy failed to yield electoral gains. In the 2024 general elections, the BJP failed to open its account in Punjab and also lost the two seats it had won in alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal in 2019. Later, reports emerged in September that Jakhar had resigned from the post, but the BJP denied the claims and that he would continue to serve as the party’s Punjab unit chief. He faces a tough challenge in making the BJP a serious contender in Punjab ahead of the February 2027 elections, where the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress remain the two major rivals.In a major blow to AAP, seven of its Rajya Sabha MPs, including Raghav Chadha, joined the BJP last month. All seven MPs were elected from Punjab and the BJP is hopeful that their inclusion will strengthen its prospects in the state.Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the BJP failed to return to power despite the induction of former chief minister Champai Soren, who had parted ways with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha ahead of the 2024 assembly elections.

Punjab: The next test of BJP’s ‘outsider’ model

With the BJP’s rise to power in West Bengal, Jharkhand now becomes the only remaining eastern state outside its control, along with Mizoram in the northeast.Its rise in non-Hindi speaking states, especially West Bengal, as well as Odisha led to the formation of its first government under domestic leader Mohan Charan Majhi in June 2024, helping the party shed its image of being limited to the Hindi heartland.The “outsider” model will be next tested in Punjab, where the BJP has been part of a coalition government but has never ruled on its own.