A Democrat lawmaker had last month compared Joe Biden, the US President and nominee for the November polls, to a “champion boxer who gets in the ring past his prime and needs his corner to throw in the towel”. Results of Wednesday’s by-elections to the four Assembly seats on Saturday indicate the same for the BJP in Bengal.

Mamata Banerjee’s party on Saturday wrested Raiganj, Bagda, and Ranaghat Dakshin seats from the BJP and secured a record victory margin in Maniktala.

India’s ruling party – which returned to power for a third straight term with a reduced majority – has always been a challenger in the state.

To use another sport, cricket, as a metaphor, like the South African cricket team that has choked at key moments of crucial tournaments, so has the BJP in Bengal. For example, the 2021 Assembly polls and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

“There is no denying the fact that the Lok Sabha results were disappointing. Our workers were a demoralised lot and even before we could recoup, the bypolls were announced,” said a Bengal BJP leader who did not want to be named.

The BJP’s line of defence is that the party did not have much time to prepare for the bypolls.

“Many of us were busy dealing with the post-poll violence unleashed by the Trinamul on our workers in many parts of the state,” the BJP leader said.

Like on polling day, on the day of counting to the BJP, the main Opposition in Bengal was on the defensive.

“The way our candidate was attacked on polling day, can it be said the polls were free and fair?” asked Shantanu Thakur, the BJP Lok Sabha MP from Bongaon. “The Trinamul RS MP Mamatabala Thakur has been allowed in the counting centre, but I was stopped.”

On paper, the BJP went into the polls with a distinct advantage. Of the four seats --- Maniktala, Bagdah, Ranaghat South and Raigunj --- except for the north Calcutta seat of Maniktala which fell vacant with the death of Sadhan Pande, the remaining three were held by the BJP in the 2021 Assembly polls.

Assembly constituency-wise break-up of the 2024 Lok Sabha poll results gave BJP a lead of 46,739 at Raigunj, 36,936 in Ranaghat South, 20,610 in Bagdah. The 12 Lok Sabha seats that went to the BJP’s kitty this summer include Raigunj, Ranaghat and Bongaon. The three Assembly segments are part of these three Lok Sabha seats, which fell vacant after incumbent MLAs who won on a BJP ticket switched to the Trinamul.

All three contested the Lok Sabha polls on a Trinamul ticket and lost. Two of the turncoats Krishna Kalyani and Mukut Mani Adhikari have been fielded by the Trinamul from Raigunj and Ranaghat South respectively, while in Bagdah Mamata preferred Madhuparna Thakur, a member of the Matua community and daughter of the party’s Rajya Sabha MP Mamatabala Thakur.

In Maniktala, the BJP relied on the former footballer and chief of the All India Football Federation Kalyan Chaubey, who had lost to the late Pande in 2021.

Only in Maniktala was the Trinamul – which won the Calcutta North Lok Sabha seat handsomely – the party ahead; by a mere 3,575 votes.

A vast section of the BJP was unhappy with the re-nomination of Chaubey from the same seat where he had lost by a margin of 20,218 votes.

“Chaubey hardly had any connect with any of the party workers. Moreover, he had challenged the 2021 poll results in court that delayed the bypoll after Sadhan Pande’s death. Trinamul turned it into a poll plank,” said a BJP state functionary. “Had we fielded a better candidate and given a fight we had a chance to make a breach in Calcutta.”

Chaubey had sought repolling in 89 of the 277 booths alleging rampant proxy and false votes by Trinamul. “Only in 71 booths could our voting agents remain inside,” Chaubey said.

The local BJP leaders in Bagdah were also unhappy with the candidate Manas Kumar Ghosh. "Where was the need to bring a candidate from Bongaon?" asked a BJP member.

Former BJP state president Dilip Ghosh, during whose term the BJP had won 18 Lok Sabha seats and over 70 seats in the Assembly, refused to comment.

“I have nothing to say. Ask the party leaders,” Ghosh said.

He lost in Burdwan-Durgapur this Lok Sabha

The leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikary and the state president and junior Union minister Sukanto Majumdar had also campaigned extensively in the seats which the BJP had won in 2021.

Like with JP Nadda at the centre, the BJP in Bengal too has broken its rule of one-man, one-post, and is yet to find a replacement for Majumdar.

“The house is in a disarray. Someone has to be held accountable,” said a state BJP functionary. “Trinamul had the advantage of the administration, police and its own army of thugs. 2026 will not be that easy unless we fail to build the organisation by learning our lessons from these losses.”