India, Jan. 8 -- As the new year unfolds, West Bengal is already in campaign mode. The calendar may still show months before the formal announcement of the Assembly elections-widely expected in March-April 2026-but the political battle lines are drawn, hardened, and appear irreversible. Bengal is no longer a state of fragmented contests and shifting coalitions. It has entered an era of binary politics, where power will be decided in a straight, high-stakes face-off between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

This is not merely another state election. Bengal 2026 is about political supremacy, ideological dominance, and narrative control-within the state and far beyond it. For the ruling Trinamool Congress, i...