New Delhi, Feb. 10 -- 2026 is shaping up to be a hectic political year in India. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appointed the relatively unknown Nitin Nabin to take over as party president. The BJP and its opposition challengers are gearing up for high-stakes assembly elections in five states later this spring. And the Election Commission of India (ECI) is in the midst of a controversial revision of India's gargantuan electoral rolls. To discuss these and the country's other key political stories, Sunetra Choudhury, the national political editor of the Hindustan Times, spoke with host Milan Vaishnav on the season premiere of Grand Tamasha, a weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced by HT at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The weekly podcast series, now in its 15th season, unpacks India's politics, economics, foreign policy, society, and culture for a global audience. On the first show of the new season, Choudhury and Vaishnav discussed the prevailing political winds in Delhi, the BJP's surprising new president, and the long shadow of the 2025 Bihar assembly polls. They also previewed the upcoming state polls, the inner turmoil within the Congress, and ECI's controversial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of poll rolls. Choudhury emphasised how much the political narrative in India has turned since the 2024 general elections, identifying the Bihar assembly elections as a critical inflection point. "After 2024, there was a bit of a question mark in some circles about Modi's strength. Bihar has established that it's incorrect - that Modi, his choices, and his campaign are still supreme," said the journalist. "I think Modi's authority, in this post-Bihar moment, has been reiterated." She cited as an example the selection of Nitin Nabin, a Bihar legislator, as the BJP's new president. Nabin was handpicked by Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah despite having a relatively limited national profile. Choudhury explained that a second takeaway from Bihar is the centrality of welfare schemes in capturing political power. She said Bihar showed that lucrative cash transfer schemes have become central to how parties compete. In Bihar, the Rs.10,000 the state government gave as part of an employment scheme established the fact that showering citizens with state largesse has now become the norm, she said. She predicted that this transactional aspect of campaigns - "something that a lot of middle-class or salaried people might have reservations about" - has now become the norm post-Bihar. If there is one issue which has caught the ruling party on the backfoot, Choudhury said, it's the pollution suffocating north India during the winter. "Even though it wasn't an issue at all in the Delhi elections last year, the protests in recent weeks.have made it more relevant." Choudhury said that pollution undercuts the government's ambitious talk of "Viksit Bharat" and India's role as a "Vishwaguru" to other nations. The pollution issue even spilled beyond conventional political arenas. Choudhury pointed to the recent India Open badminton tournament, where players and coaches publicly complained about hazardous air quality affecting performance and health. What might otherwise have been a routine sporting controversy quickly became a wider talking point - underscoring how pollution has begun to intrude into everyday life, culture, and even elite sport.HTC...