As India heads into a politically charged 2026, four key States and a Union Territory are heading for Assembly elections. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will try to breach the southern obstacle to continue its winning streak, and a fragmented Opposition will fight to stop the saffron party’s juggernaut.
Incumbency could be tested, while language, central-State relations and migration, besides communal polarisation, could be the major poll planks in most of the States going to elections this year.
Editorial | Do not rush it: On the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls
The Election Commission of India has sounded the poll bugle with the announcement of a Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, which the poll body says is a clean-up process. This very process has turned into a political row with poll-bound States seeing lakhs of names deleted from the draft rolls. While the BJP and its allies support the Election Commission’s stand, the Opposition parties cry foul, saying it paves the way for disenfranchisement. The Congress has gone one step further and alleged that the ECI, in connivance with the ruling party, is indulging in ‘vote theft’. The Opposition’s campaign has not converted into electoral wins last year; will it bear fruits this year?
