Election news May 5 highlights: Mamata addresses media, Vijay's TVK holds meet over Tamil Nadu govt formation

Election results 2026 LIVE: BJP National President Nitin Nabin, along with CM Rekha Gupta, MP Bansuri Swaraj, party's Delhi unit chief Virendraa Sachdeva and others, offers prayers at Kali Bari Mandir in CR Park in Delhi.

Election results 2026 LIVE: Speaking to ANI, Vijay's father Chandrasekhar expressed gratitude and joy over his son securing a massive victory. He added that he “appreciates” Vijay’s faith that he will become the chief minister.

“As a father, I am very proud and happy. My wishes to my son. In the last two years, his confidence has been fantastic and the faith that I will come as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. I'm appreciating that attitude. As a leader, his boldness is that I will stand on my own legs with no alliance. I think it's a historical success, a historical victory for Vijay,” he said.

Election results 2026 LIVE: Vijay has won two seats, so he will have to vacate one, which brings TVK's effective tally to 107. But in the case of a bypoll, the effective majority mark in the Tamil Nadu assembly also comes down to 117, meaning TVK, in any case, needs 10 more MLAs to form the government.

Election results 2026 LIVE: Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra reacted to BJP's victory in Bengal and said that the will of the people is “supreme”.

“The will of the people is supreme. If Bengal wanted BJP then Bengal has got BJP. We respect that. We fought the good fight against unimaginable odds on an uneven pitch and for that I am proud of my leader & my party. We will continue to stand & fight for a secular country where the constitution, not brute majoritarianism, is the last word. Jai Hind,” she wrote on X.

Election results 2026 LIVE: One thing Vijay and the TVK could do is to take the smaller parties from the DMK alliance with them to form the government. The party needs 10 MLAs to form the government. The smaller parties (including Congress) in the DMK alliance have 14. HT earlier reported that a section of Congress wanted a pre-poll alliance with the TVK and could still support Vijay with its five members. The two Left parties (CPI and CPI(M)) each have two legislators. If these go with the TVK, Vijay would need just one more to form the government, which the Dalit-centric Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) could provide.

The only problem with this is the impact it will have on the broader opposition alliance in the country and the DMK’s role in it. Will the DMK remain aligned with the INDIA bloc if Congress and others ditch it in the state?

Election results 2026 LIVE: Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi thanked the people of Kerala for their faith in the party as the UDF surged ahead in the state. “To all my brothers and sisters in Keralam, thank you for your faith and for your overwhelming support. The trust you have placed in us will be the UDF’s guiding force as we work hard towards building a better future for each one of you. I sincerely hope that our gratitude to you will be evident each day of the next five years as we strive to fulfill our commitments to you with honesty and humility,” Gandhi wrote on X.

Election results 2026 LIVE: TVK leader Aadhav Arjuna arrived at the residence of TVK chief Vijay. TVK won 108 of the total 234 seats in the state, becoming the single largest party in the state.

Election results 2026 LIVE: Result of Bengal's Rajarhat new town constituency is awaited as the counting is still underway. Currently, TMC's Tapash Chatterjee is leading.

Election results 2026 LIVE: For a man bruised by electoral setbacks far too often, Rahul Gandhi must be a relatively relieved man. The Congress has won its most decisive victory in Kerala in a generation. The party now has four chief ministers on its own – three of whom are in southern India. Moreover, the losses suffered by MK Stalin and Mamata Banerjee might give the Congress more elbow room within the INDIA bloc.

Yet, danger bells are ringing. From once ruling Assam, the Congress has now lost the state thrice on the trot. In Tamil Nadu, one of his oldest allies, the DMK, was defeated by an upstart who captured the imagination of young people. The party’s own tally shrunk and any consolation tie-up with Vijay – if at all – will not help expand its base. And in Bengal, the Congress might draw some heart from opening its account in the assembly but its relevance is limited.

Gandhi ,the Congress leader, had a mixed day. But Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, had a horrendous day. The Opposition lost in the one round of polls where it was expected to do well. The INDIA bloc will be cornered in the Rajya Sabha. The loss in Tamil Nadu will deprive Gandhi of his talking point of federalism and diversity. After all, the BJP today rules a far more linguistically and regionally diverse region than the Congress. Read more here.

Election results 2026 LIVE: “Chor, chor (thief),” BJP supporters chanted when Abhishek Banerjee, the chief minister’s nephew and second-in-command, walked into the Sakhawat Memorial Girls School on Monday, where votes from Mamata Banerjee’s own constituency were being counted. By afternoon, Bengal had turned saffron — and Banerjee’s 15-year government had been voted out in a political upheaval that carries the same shape as 2011, when her own street agitations ended 34 years of Left rule.

The BJP is set to govern Bengal for the first time since Independence. The TMC’s vote share collapsed from 48% in 2021 to 40.8% — a loss of more than 7 percentage points. Banerjee lost her own constituency, Bhabanipur, by 15,105votes. The decisive shift came in the second phase, covering 142 seats: BJP, which won just 18 of those in 2021, won 66 on Monday.

Turnout rose sharply, with 63.4 million votes cast at 93%, against 59.9 million and 82.3% five years ago. To many observers, the BJP’s Bengal win is the biggest political moment for the party since the 2014 Lok Sabha victory that installed Narendra Modi at the Centre. Read more.

Election results 2026 LIVE: On the BJP-NDA's performance in the assembly elections in West Bengal, BJP MLA Ram Kripal Yadav said, "I congratulate all the workers of the party...There was so much public anger against Mamata Didi that she could not even save herself in the elections."

Election results 2026 LIVE: On the BJP-NDA's performance in the Assembly elections in 4 states and 1 UT, Union Minister Chirag Paswan says, "...BJP has breached the fortress of West Bengal and will be forming a government. The public has given a befitting reply to the opposition parties that practice the politics of appeasement. The results in Assam, Puducherry, and West Bengal have proven that the public believes in the leadership of PM Modi, and he will become the Prime Minister again in 2029..."

Election results 2026 LIVE: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said that PM Modi and home minister Amit Shah have done a good job in Bengal and Assam and “that's partially because they are very good at conducting elections”.

“They are professionally organised. They have strong organisational strength. They put a lot of resources, including financial resources, into their campaign. There are things that all of us can learn from that. I would only hope that their message will be one of uniting Indians and not dividing them,” he said.

Election results 2026 LIVE: Trinamool Congress alleged that after BJP won, its workers vandalised their party office in Jalpaiguri Ward 14.

“The BJP has exposed its true face the moment it came to power. In Jalpaiguri Ward 14, BJP-backed miscreants have unleashed vandalism at our Trinamool Congress party office. This destruction and deliberate attempt to create unrest is the real face of the BJP,” TMC wrote in a post on X and shared a video.

Election results 2026 LIVE: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday backed claims of seats being “stolen” in West Bengal made by TMC chief Mamata Banerjee.

“Assam and Bengal are clear cases of the election being stolen by the BJP with the support of the EC. We agree with Mamata ji. More than 100 seats were stolen in Bengal,” Rahul said in a post on X.

"We have seen this playbook before:

Madhya Pradesh.

Haryana.

Maharashtra.

Lok Sabha 2024 etc," Rahul further alleged.

Election results 2026 LIVE: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said that there are lessons to be learned from Congress' win Kerala, saying that if the party can get it right there, it needs to think what it can do at other places.

“I think the party will have to do some very serious introspection, no doubt about it. We've said this before, and today we have a very good example of what worked right. If we can get it right in Kerala, what can we do to get it right elsewhere? That is a lesson the Congress party should learn,” he said.

Election results 2026 LIVE: After Vijay's performance in Tamil Nadu polls, his father SA Chandrasekhar said, "As a father, I am very proud and happy. My wishes to my son. In the last two years, his confidence has been fantastic and the faith that I will come as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. I'm appreciating that attitude. As a leader, his boldness is that I will stand on my own legs with no alliance. I think it's a historical success, a historical victory for Vijay."

Election results 2026 LIVE: Mamata Banerjee is no stranger to setbacks. In August 1990, the then Youth Congress leader received two blows to her head during a protest against the then Left Front regime. The next year, she was attacked by ruling party goons again. And then in 2001, she was so sure of victory that she even showed the famous ‘V’ sign. The seven-term MP, former Union minister and three-time CM is as battle hardened as they come. Yet, Banerjee is facing the toughest test of her career.

The formidable coalition she built with welfare and her personal charisma has disintegrated. Muslims fragmented at the precise time communal resentment, aspiration and demographic anxieties united the Hindu voter behind the BJP. Read more here.

Election results 2026 LIVE: BJP leader and winning candidate from Bhabanipur and Nandigram seat, Suvendu Adhikari said that he will work for the Hindus of the area.

"...This time I won the election with almost ten thousand votes. The Hindu people of Nandigram made me win again. There, the entire Muslim vote went to TMC... I will work for the Hindus of Nandigram. TMC will be finished. Within 24 hours, it will be destroyed, it will be finished. This corrupt, family-oriented party has no ideology... We will do the work that Home Minister Amit Shah had declared in the manifesto, and Prime Minister Modi has guaranteed again and again. We will complete it..." he said after winning.

Election results 2026 LIVE: After Vijay's stunning performance in Tamil Nadu, security outside his residence has been beefed up.

Election results 2026 LIVE: TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee will hold a press conference at 4pm today, following their party's defeat in Bengal.

Election results 2026 LIVE: In Tamil Nadu's Tirupattur constituency, TVK candidate Seenivasa Sethupathy R won against DMK's Periakaruppan Kr by a margin of just one vote.

Election results 2026 LIVE: Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of opposition in West Bengal assembly, who defeated chief minister Mamata Banerjee in her home constituency Bhabanipur on Monday, has emerged as the front-runner for the chief ministerial post after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the assembly polls in the eastern state, party functionaries said.

The BJP won the West Bengal assembly polls for the first time on Monday, winning 206 of the state’s 293 seats for which counting took place. Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) won (or was leading from) 81 seats.

BJP leaders, however, said the party has not ruled out names of state unit chief Samik Bhattacharya and vice-president Agnimitra Paul as other probable CM face. Paul won from Asansol Dakshin on Monday.

Adhikari, according to a senior BJP functionary, could be rewarded for defeating Mamata Banerjee not once, but twice — this time by a margin of 15,105 votes in Bhabanipur. He had also defeated Banerjee from Nandigram in 2021 polls, by 1,956 votes. “He has been unrelenting against Mamata since he left the TMC in 2020,” said a senior Bengal BJP leader, requesting anonymity. In return, the leader added, the TMC government had slapped around 300 cases against Adhikari.

Election results 2026 LIVE: After West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee lost to BJP's Suvendu Adhikari in Bhabanipur by a margin of around 15,000 votes, home minister Amit Shah hailed ther verdict.

“Hats off to the people of Bhabanipur. Their mandate has made it clear what fate awaits an anarchic ruler,” he wrote on X.

Election results 2026 LIVE: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi congratulated actor-turned-politician Vijay for party's big win in Tamil Nadu.

“I spoke to Thiru Vijay and congratulated him on TVK’s spectacular result. This mandate reflects the rising voice of youth which cannot, and will not, be ignored. My heartfelt thanks to the Congress workers of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry for their hard work and support. I reiterate that the Congress party will continue to protect and serve the people of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry,” Gandhi wrote on X.