DNA Special: 'Modi wave' or 'Didi' once again in West Bengal?

The last phase of voting in West Bengal concluded on Thursday. On May 2, it will be clear whether there be a 'Modi wave' in West Bengal or will 'Didi' once again win the battle. While different exit polls predict different results, about West Bengal, one thing is clear that there is a close fight between BJP and TMC.

Although there are 294 assembly seats in West Bengal, elections were postponed after the death of candidates in 2 seats. The key thing is that in both these seats, one candidate died due to coronavirus. That is, elections were held on 292 seats only.

In this sense, 148 seats are needed to form the government in West Bengal. According to the Maha EXIT POLL of four news channels, this time in West Bengal, there is a tough fight. BJP is expected to become the largest party with 143 seats, Mamta Banerjee's TMC is predicted to get 129 seats, and Congress and the Left alliance are getting only 16 seats.

You might also be wondering how correct are Exit Polls.

With reference to West Bengal, Exit Polls have never been proved wrong after the 2006 assembly elections. In the year 2006, Mamata Banerjee was demonstrating in a big way against former Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. She hoped that the election results would be in her favour but that did not happen. At that time, all the Exit Polls were unanimously showing the Left parties as winners and the election results remained the same.

Similarly, in the Exit Polls of the 2011 Legislative Assembly elections, it was predicted that 34 years of left governance would end in West Bengal and the TMC government would be formed. When the results came out, these Exit Polls proved to be correct.

The same happened in the 2016 Legislative Assembly elections. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections too, most of the Exit Polls were saying that there will be a close fight between BJP and TMC, which happened. That is, in the context of West Bengal, the Exit Polls have been proved right here. However, whether this trend continues this time or not, it will be clear only on May 2.

Mamata Banerjee's party had a voter share of 45.6 percent in the 2016 assembly elections. TMC was the only party with a voter share of more than 25 percent, meaning all other parties got lesser votes than this. This is the reason why Mamata Banerjee won 211 of the 294 seats in the 2016 Legislative Assembly. Whereas CPM came in second place with 20.1 percent vote share, Congress in third place and BJP in fourth place.

BJP's vote share at that time was 10.3 percent and won only three seats out of 294. According to this, five years ago, BJP was not even close to Congress and CPM, let alone TMC. The big thing is that BJP's best performance in the West Bengal assembly elections is also 3 seats. But today, BJP is claiming to form the government in West Bengal. Why? .. Now understand this from the results of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The BJP, which won 3 seats in the 2016 assembly elections, won 18 of the 42 seats in West Bengal in the 2019 general election. While Mamta Banerjee's party TMC won 22 seats. But if we look at these results in terms of assembly, BJP won 121 assembly seats and Mamata Banerjee's party won 164 seats.

Mamta Banerjee became the Chief Minister of the state for the first time in 2011. But she laid the foundation of power two years ago in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections itself. Then in the general election, TMC won 19 seats for the first time and gave a big blow to the Left. The same result also became the basis of the 2011 assembly elections. But the thing to understand is that what happened in the 2009 Lok Sabha election, was also done in the Lok Sabha election of 2019 after some 10 years.

The only difference is that then Mamata Banerjee won 19 seats, beating the 34-year rule of the Left, and in 2019, the BJP won 18 seats in the Lok Sabha, beating her 10-year rule. And we think that when the results are out on May 2, then you can see the same analysis of seats.