By: Nava Thakuria -
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- The recent electoral victories of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Assam and West Bengal have created tensions with bordering Bangladesh over fears of a centralized, less accommodating Indian foreign policy and the threat of strict border enforcement. West Bengal has historically served as a quiet counterbalance that helped shape New Delhi’s regional decisions. With the BJP in control at both the national and state levels, Bangladesh officials are said to fear that the moderating voice may now be stilled. Tensions between the two countries have been rising since the ouster last year of former Bangladesh leader Sheikh Hasina, who was much friendlier to New Delhi than the current administration in Dhaka.
In a game-changer for Indian politics, the BJP won the legislative assembly elections in West Bengal for the first time in the party’s 46-year history in early May, while the coalition led by BJP won the legislative assembly elections of Assam for a third consecutive term with a landslide gain of 102 out of 126 seats. The BJP’s victory changes the electoral equation in East India, given that the state was previously ruled by a local party, the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), since 2011, whose leader Mamata Banerjee has been a fierce critic of Modi. Mamata, a hardliner politician, played the role of a strong opposition voice and prevented many schemes of the BJP government from being implemented in West Bengal. While opposing the fencing of West Bengal’s border with Bangladesh, the chief minister restricted many public welfare schemes initiated by the central government.
Just after the elections, Bengal’s new chief minister Suvendu Adhikari declared an urgent initiative to fence its border with Bangladesh, while the new Assam chief, Himanta Biswa Sarma, adopted decisions to fulfill his electoral promises including the safeguarding of Assam’s indigenous population from Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators. Migration across the porous border has become a growing issue between the two countries in recent years.
A number of radical elements in Bangladesh say they fear that the dominance of the BJP in Bengal and Assam would increase anti-Muslim narratives backed by communal political activism in the name of security. Some have publicly warned that if the Muslim residents of eastern India face atrocities because of the BJP’s rise, there would be strong repercussions in Bangladesh, possibly including another series of persecutions against Hindus in Bangladesh. A few of them hit the streets of Dhaka expressing dissatisfaction over TMC’s loss. Some of them alleged that the BJP won the Bengal election through fraud and hence Mamata should be reinstated.
Some Bangladeshi media reports alleged that at least 2,500 migrants were pushed into Bangladesh last year from Assam. Even during the last election campaign, Sarma, a member of the pro-Hindu BJP, regularly made comments against Bangladeshi Muslims. He publicly declared Muslim infiltrators would be sent back to Bangladesh without waiting for mutual diplomatic arrangements. Many Bangladeshi activists fear casualties from firing by border security forces along the Bangladesh-India border will increase in the coming days.
However, BNP leaders said they welcomed the election outcome, hoping the relationship between Bangladesh and India would remain cordial. The party, which won the national election in February 2026, congratulated Adhikari as the new leader of Bengal. Many BNP leaders said that Dhaka can now expect to get the much-delayed Teesta water-sharing agreement, a long-stalled transboundary dispute over the allocation of the river’s waters, especially during the dry season, to be implemented. The pact had been strongly opposed by Mamata during her long tenure as Bengal chief minister.
The Teesta river flows through Bengal into northern Bangladesh. New Delhi and Dhaka almost adopted a pact in 2011 allowing India 42.5 percent of the river’s water, leaving 37.5 percent for Bangladesh during the lean period of December to March, but Mamata opposed the deal. Given Teesta’s water is crucial to agriculture and the livelihood of Bangladesh’s population of 180 million, Bangladeshi leaders now hope for a fair deal on the Teesta with the new Bengal leadership. Even ousted Bangladesh premier Sheikh Hasina, taking refuge in India since the uprising in Bangladesh from July to August 2024, congratulated Adhikari for his historic electoral victory. The daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding president of Bangladesh, faces a death sentence in Bangladesh, but has reportedly been planning to return home after democracy is restored in the country. The Daily Star, Bangladesh’s largest-selling English newspaper, highlighted Dhaka’s challenges while dealing with issues like water security, border governance, and economic resilience. It also warned that New Delhi may now view Dhaka’s external engagements—particularly with China—through a more security-conscious lens. This could narrow Dhaka’s room for maneuver as it seeks to balance economic opportunities from China with geopolitical tensions between China and India, stated an editorial of the daily, adding that the transition from dealing with a fragmented system to confronting a far more unified neighbor would be a challenge to Dhaka.