View: Good governance will now be the best electoral campaign

The underlying message from the four states and one union territory that went to polls is that leadership counts. Despite its hoopla, eagerly consumed by a Delhi-centric media, BJP’s chariot in Bengal failed to pip the post. Among other factors, this was because it did not have a state leader who could match Mamata Banerjee in popularity. Not that BJP’s emergence as the principal opposition in parliamentary and, now, assembly polls, in the state