No two ways about it: only a particularly saffron-tinted strain of intellectual dishonesty can deny that the BJP’s victory in West Bengal was secured through dhandlebazi on a monumental scale. At the same time, there is no reason to think the party’s leadership will permit anyone to second-guess its ‘historic’ electoral heist. There are no faint hearts in the upper echelons of the national ruling party. Nor is it realistic to believe the Supreme Court will do anything about this democratic fraud in West Bengal. Possession, after all, is nine-tenths of the law.With West Bengal in the saffron column, the polity is poised for substantive structural realignment. The future does not promise ‘acche din.’ First, the conquest of West Bengal would take the BJP one step closer to its goal of becoming a pan-Indian party. The South remains elusive, of course, but the East is now fully under its control. It is easy to forget that the party does not command a majority in the Lok Sabha on its own, and that it is sheer cocksureness that has given the Modi government an unchecked run of the national stage. That arrogance will only deepen now, as other institutions feel increasingly intimidated. The Modi regime will be emboldened to believe it has a licence to impose its whims and “visions” on the entire country, without any obligation to build a national consensus on issues of fundamental importance to the country’s well-being. The opposition will be further ignored and marginalised. Bitterness and resentment will multiply across the polity.Also read: BJP’s West Bengal Sweep Was Broad, But the Numbers Reveal a More Complicated StorySecond, no less significant is the fall of regional ‘satraps.’ Naveen Patnaik was already gone. Last month, Nitish Kumar was knee-capped. Now, M.K. Stalin and Mamata Banerjee have been cut to size. For better or worse, the regional bosses enjoyed a certain heft in forging or blocking a coherent national opposition. Now it will be necessary for all of them to readjust their sights, tone down their egos and re-learn the art of political give and take. It must be hoped that the Congress leadership would not be too tempted to over-price itself. The 2029 battle requires a new grammar of cooperation and co-existence in the non-BJP space.Third, the BJP’s ability to impose itself on the Bengali ‘asmita’ begs a question: has sub-nationalism surrendered itself to an assertive, muscular nationalism as interpreted by the BJP? Perhaps not. Centuries and centuries of regional cultural legacies and histories and self-images will get inundated in the meretriciousness of gaudy Hindutva projects? If the BJP/Sangh Parivar insist on total amalgamation of cultural/regional/linguistic diversities into its version of Hindutva nationalism, the polity will witness an exhausting fractiousness.A certain amount of bitterness will be inevitable as the Modi model of governance now calls from micro-management of the BJP-ruled states from Delhi. For too long, both Bihar and West Bengal have wallowed in their own autonomous skin; there will be painful pinpricks as all the local elites in Patna and Kolkata realise that they no longer carry any weight.Fourth, the dislodging of the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal would effectively deny Muslims a place of sanctuary. This has long been a sore point for BJP-RSS strategists: that Muslims – especially the poor – have been gravitating to West Bengal in search of protection and breathing space.After a decade of ‘Hindu revolution’, a pattern in Muslim coping strategies is discernible: the very rich and affluent remain uneasily watchful; the middle classes are sending their children to Australia, New Zealand and North America – out of harm’s way. It is the vast majority, however, that lacks the means to leave. They are left to contend with the raw, often ugly demands made on them in mohallas and villages by Hindutva vigilantes. The closing of West Bengal as a sanctuary for this underclass could produce deeply toxic scenarios.Fifth, with Narendra Modi’s BJP now ascendant in West Bengal and Bihar, no one should be surprised if the regime’s corporate friends and funders reinvent themselves – and their so-called entrepreneurship and greed – as modern-day avatars of the East India Company. Investors’ summits and conclaves would be held in Kolkata; impassioned pleas for industrialisation will be made and eminent economists will be pressed into service to provide the blue-prints for ‘vikas’ in the region.Also read: Bengal was the First Breeding Ground of Hindu Nationalism and the Idea of Hindutva Originated ThereSoon – maybe as early as the next Independence Day – all these expressions of corporate lust and greed, could be collated and presented as Modi’s a ‘grand vision’ for Eastern India. Sixth, with Bihar and West Bengal under the BJP’s belt, these two big regions will be subjected to a massive overdose of Modi’s personality cult. Till now, the Modi billboards and cut-outs were confined to central installations like airports and Raj Bhavans; a visitor could travel hundreds of miles in West Bengal without coming across a Modi projection. All that will change. Megalomania breeds megalomania and that will further sour the relationship between the emperor and his subjects. And, not just in Bihar and West Bengal, the personality cult will make its demands of compliance and obedience all over the polity, further straining major and minor institutions, particularly the media.Paradoxically, whereas the BJP will strengthen its grip over national politics, the polity’s democratic deficit would further widen. Prime Minister Modi’s stewardship has already reached its maximum potential; the next few years, till the 2029 battle, will witness ennui at the highest level. Institutional wholesomeness will give way to an ugly disorder in the streets.Harish Khare was editor-in-chief of The Tribune.