Polls on my Pod: Bengal Flips, Vijay Disrupts, Kerala Resets
5/4/202626 min
A political script has been torn up across India’s key states. Tamil Nadu sees actor Vijay’s TVK disrupt decades of Dravidian dominance. West Bengal delivers a stunning power shift as BJP ends a 15-year Trinamool rule. Assam doubles down on continuity, handing Himanta Biswa Sarma a third term and deepening BJP’s hold. And Kerala returns to its classic anti-incumbency cycle, giving Congress a crucial win. In this episode of Polls on My Pod, Nidhi Sharma and ET's Dia Rekhi, Kumar Anshuman and CL Manoj decode the deeper story—fracturing vote banks, new social coalitions, and what these mandates signal for national politics ahead. Listen in:
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First 90 secondsNidhi Sharma· Host0:00
[upbeat music] [clapping] The results of assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Assam are out. These aren't just numbers, they are seismic shifts. [upbeat music] We've seen a 15-year-long fortress fall in the east, a cinematic debut in the south that has sidelined the Dravidian giants, and a historic revolving door returning in God's own country. In this episode of Polls On My Pod, our special election podcast series, we go beyond election rallies and decipher the shifting social coalitions through the election results. It is Tuesday, the 5th of May. From The Economic Times, I'm your host Nidhi Sharma, and you're listening to The Morning Brief. [upbeat music] Today on Polls On My Pod, let's start with the state that has truly broken the political script, Tamil Nadu. [upbeat music] For decades, Tamil Nadu followed a predictable pendulum pattern, flipping between the DMK and AIADMK