It’s a red-letter day in the annals of Bharatiya Janata Party's electoral history. The saffron party has won a record 150 Assembly seats, cementing its position in the ruling chair for the seventh consecutive time.
The party robustly walks into the record books, holding its head high and equalling the Left Front as the longest-ruling party or coalition in any state.
It was under the energetic leadership of former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu that the Left held the reins of power for the first time in 1977. Since then, he enjoyed enviable success till 2000. He was succeeded by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. The dream run for the Left went on till 2011, when another stalwart, from another party - The TMC - ensured it came to a screeching halt.
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In all, the Left lorded over Bengal for 34 years.
Now, it’s time for the J P Nadda-led BJP to enjoy the honours as it is ready to govern the western state of Gujarat for a record seventh time.
Since 1995, the electorate has been voting the BJP to power ceaselessly. It began with Keshubhai Patel and had Narendra Modi as the most prominent, popular, influential and inspirational leader (since 2002) till he was crowned the Prime Minister of India in 2014.
However, even if the BJP goes on to complete the seventh term, it will complete 32 years in power, falling shy of the Left by just 2 years.
Apart from this glory, the BJP has bettered its own 2002 tally of 127 under Narendra Modi. Incidentally, the BJP has also plundered the Assembly elections in a record manner in that it has bludgeoned the previous highest tally of 149 in the year 1985 by a Madhavsinh Solanki-led Congress. He had employed the KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim) formula to cruise to record victory.
Now, it is the BJP that has had the last laugh!