Dhaka Is Watching: How Bangladesh Is Reading BJP’s West Bengal Win
BJP wins West Bengal for the first time since Independence. Across the border, the mood is a cocktail of shock, cautious hope, diplomatic anxiety— and plain fear.
On May 4, 2026, West Bengal witnessed its first BJP government since Independence, as the Trinamool Congress stared at defeat after 15 years in power. The BJP took a massive lead over the TMC, with the Election Commission confirming a decisive victory. Final tallies put BJP at 207 seats in the 294-seat assembly, TMC reduced to 80.
In Dhaka, the news landed differently than it did in Kolkata.
“Shocked”— But Some See Opportunity
BNP Information Secretary Azizul Baree Helal said he was “stunned” that the TMC was defeated by such a wide margin after holding power for so long. Yet in the same breath, he congratulated the BJP’s victory under Suvendu Adhikari.
The BNP— Bangladesh’s ruling party since winning a landslide in February 2026 — saw a silver lining where others saw storm clouds. Their focus: the long-stalled Teesta water-sharing agreement.
Helal pointed directly at the outgoing TMC leadership as the primary obstacle to progress on the Teesta water treaty, stalled for over a decade. With Adhikari now at the helm in West Bengal, the BNP believes the state government will align with the Modi administration’s existing desire to finalise the treaty.
Bangladesh has long sought the pact, arguing that Teesta water is crucial for irrigation and livelihoods in its northern districts. A draft agreement was finalised in 2011— India was to get 42.5%, Bangladesh 37.5% during the lean season— but it collapsed when Mamata Banerjee blocked it.
But not everyone in Dhaka was celebrating.
“Extremists in Power”— The Other Side of Bangladesh’s Reaction
NCP spokesperson Asif Mahmud said objectionable comments about Bangladesh had already started coming from West Bengal after the BJP result. He warned the newly elected government not to comment on Bangladesh’s internal affairs, and expressed concern over what he called “extremists” coming to power in the border state.
Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman was blunter. A day after the BJP’s victory, he warned that Dhaka would take action if “push-in” incidents occurred following the change of government in West Bengal.
The term “push-in”— called “pushback” in India— is the practice of Indian border forces physically pushing individuals across the border into Bangladesh. It is already happening at scale.
According to Prothom Alo, a major Bangladeshi newspaper, the Indian Border Security Force pushed 2,479 people into Bangladesh between May 7, 2025 and January 26, 2026— just eight months. Border Guard Bangladesh later identified at least 120 of them as Indian nationals.
What Bangladesh’s Politicians Fear Most
Before the results, Bangladesh NCP leader Akhtar Hossain warned in parliament that a BJP victory could trigger mass deportations of illegal Bangladeshi nationals from India, potentially creating a “sea of migrants” entering Bangladesh.
That fear did not go away after the results.
Bangladesh is now effectively bordered by BJP-governed states on two major fronts — Assam and West Bengal — which experts say raises pressure that traditional diplomatic channels on borders will intensify. Even people-to-people movement, already declining, could be further curtailed under a more rigid provincial administration.
An analyst from the International Crisis Group told The Diplomat that “a BJP-led government in West Bengal will likely increase the securitization of the border and could put increased strain on communal ties.”
Suvendu Adhikari, widely expected to be the next Chief Minister, had made this a centerpiece of his campaign. He repeatedly referred to “Bangladeshi Muslim intruders” and Rohingya migrants, claiming around 1 crore “Rohingya immigrants and Bangladeshi Muslim voters” were on West Bengal’s electoral rolls. He also warned that without action, West Bengal could turn into “Greater Bangladesh.”
On the Indian Side: Border Hindus and the Matua Factor
Across the 2,217-km shared border, eight West Bengal districts— Maldah, Murshidabad, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Uttar Dinajpur, Dakshin Dinajpur, Nadia and North 24 Parganas— form the frontline of this political drama.
Violence against Hindus in post-Hasina Bangladesh directly shaped voting patterns here. Academics describe it as the BJP’s “politics of memory”— invoking the memory of religious victimization faced by the Matua-Namasudra community in East Pakistan and Bangladesh to mobilize them as a group of persecuted Hindu refugees rather than a lower-caste bloc.
Even people whose names were deleted from voter rolls during the controversial Special Intensive Revision exercise actively participated in BJP’s campaign, hoping the party’s pro-Hindu orientation would eventually deliver citizenship and voting rights for them.
One community leader put it plainly: “Matuas are not infiltrators. All Hindus who came from Bangladesh are refugees and they will be given citizenship. But any Muslim who has come from Bangladesh is an infiltrator and has no place in India.”
BJP leaders promised that a BJP government in West Bengal would speed up citizenship processing under the Citizenship Amendment Act— a key promise to the Matua community.
The Bigger Picture
For Dhaka, this transition introduces a new geopolitical calculus. With BJP’s focus on border security and migration, long-standing issues like the Teesta water treaty and cross-border trade enter a period of uncertainty.
The Ganges water-sharing treaty is also set to expire in December 2026, adding further urgency.
The fundamental reality acknowledged by analysts is that Dhaka deals with Delhi, not Kolkata. Since BJP is in power at both the center and now in the state, and currently seeks a stable relationship with Bangladesh, strategic interests may temper the hardest political impulses.
But in border villages, in Dhaka tea stalls, and in the corridors of Bangladesh’s foreign ministry, the question is no longer abstract. It is visceral: What does this BJP government actually do next?
The Teesta, the border fence, the deportations, the CAA— these are no longer election promises. They are now government policy waiting to happen.