Indian politician, leader of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and chief minister of West Bengal for 15 years until ejected by voters in May 2026. Her party ran India's fourth-most-populous state, home to 100m people. Under her rule the state's economy fell behind much of the rest of the country; an average Bengali's income is roughly half that of someone in Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat. Voters had come to see her party as authoritarian and corrupt: critics accused it of silencing opponents, running extortion rackets and demanding bungs for land and licences. The BJP campaign focused on a teacher-recruitment scandal.
In state elections whose results were announced on May 4th 2026, the BJP under Narendra Modi won a landslide, taking over 45% of the vote and more than two-thirds of the seats in West Bengal. The BJP did particularly well among urban, middle-class voters and won a large share of the Hindu vote, leaving the West Bengal electorate one of the most religiously polarised of any Indian state. In an ungracious last act, Ms Banerjee indicated she was refusing to step down, claiming the other side had cheated.
She did have grievances about the conduct of the vote. The central government deployed almost a quarter of a million armed police to oversee voting. A heavy-handed revision of electoral rolls removed more than 9m names—11% of the electorate—disproportionately Muslims, women and Dalits, the TMC's base. Fewer than 2,000 of 3.4m appeals were reinstated in time to vote.
Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery.