Upcoming Elections In India: Kerala To West Bengal, Key Assembly Polls To Watch In 2026

It's going to be a busy year for political parties with Assembly elections scheduled to be held in four key states and one Union Territory. In 2025, the BJP-led NDA comfortably secured victories in the Delhi and Bihar polls. But this year will be a crucial test for both the ruling alliance at the Centre and the opposition INDIA Bloc with Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam and the Union Territory of Puducherry going to Assembly polls.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has started the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls that has been a major political talking point, with lakhs of names being omitted in the draft rolls in poll-bound states. While the ruling BJP and its NDA allies support the move, Congress and several other INDIA Bloc allies have criticised the ECI. 

This year's election cycle kicks off with the civic body polls in Maharashtra on Jan. 15, which include the long-delayed Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections as well.

The polls for the BMC and 28 other municipal corporations in Maharashtra are going to be a direct face-off between the Mahayuti, led by the BJP, and the Maha Vikas Aghadi, the coalition led by Congress, Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).  

In Mumbai, cousins Uddhav and Raj Thackeray have reunited after a nearly two-decade feud. They are looking forward to reclaiming Shiv Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray's legacy from the faction headed by Eknath Shinde, who broke ranks in 2022 and joined the BJP along with a group of Sena MLAs to bring down the Uddhav Thackeray-led government.

Also, Sharad Pawar and his nephew Ajit have buried the hatchet after the split in July 2023. They look forward to retaining their bastion of the twin cities of Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad.

On the other hand, the BJP showed a strong performance in the December 2025 panchayat polls in the state. The ruling party is looking to further consolidate its voter base in the state for the civic body polls.

State Assembly elections to fill 126 seats will be held around March, April. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is hoping to return for another term.  

The Congress, on the other hand, is gearing up to return to power under the leadership of Gaurav Gogoi, the MP from Jorhat and the Lok Sabha Deputy Leader of the Opposition. He was appointed as president of the Assam unit of Congress in May 2025.

The Opposition has been raising questions around ethnic representation, implications of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act implementation, among others. Also, the AIDUF has established itself as a key party in the State, with a strong base in Muslim majority regions.

One of the most talked-about elections this year will be taking place in West Bengal, where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led TMC has been in power for the past 15 years.

Positioning herself as the protector of people's rights, Banerjee has been targeting the BJP-led Centre over issues like the amendments to the Waqf laws as well as the voter re-verification drive.

Banerjee has already announced her party will contest without any alliance in the upcoming polls, noting that Congress has no base in the state.

On the other hand, it’s going to be a crucial test for the BJP as the poll outcome in the state could set the political narrative and direction for the 2029 Lok Sabha elections.

Assembly elections in the state are expected to be held in March-April for 294 seats.

The DMK is eying a second consecutive term under the leadership of Chief Minister MK Stalin. In a recent address to party workers for the ‘My Booth – My Victory’ programme, the CM claimed the DMK would form the government again in 2026 with 2.5 crore votes.

The BJP, which will be contesting in alliance with AIADMK, has not won a single seat in the state in the last two Lok Sabha elections. The national party has only had eight MLAs since the 1980s, while it failed to open its account in 1989, 1996, 2011, and 2016.

Keeping aside the major clash between DMK and AIADMK, the spotlight this time remains on actor Vijay and his Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam. The party considers DMK as its 'political enemy' and the BJP as its 'ideological enemy'. 

In Kerala, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) is aiming for a third consecutive term. The anti-incumbency factor will play a major role, especially after the strong performance of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in recent local body polls, where it bagged a majority of gram panchayats, block panchayats and municipalities.

In recent months, the state administration has faced corruption allegations.

Notably, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who won from the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, is expected to be tasked with ensuring the grand old party's victory in the Assembly polls.

Elections to the 140-member Assembly are expected to be held in April.  

The BJP had made gradual inroads in Kerala with the election of its first-ever Lok Sabha MP, Suresh Gopi, in 2024, and the party's victory in the Thiruvananthapuram municipal body last month.

Elections for the 30-member Assembly in the Union Territory are scheduled to be held in April-May.

The key focus here will be on the contest between the ruling All-India NR Congress (AINRC), which is a part of the NDA, and the Congress.