The current round of assembly polls could bring to BJP a long-awaited prize — Bengal, a state it has been trying to wrest from Mamata Banerjee since 2016, most exit polls have predicted. One more endorsed the prediction today.
The BJP, Today’s Chanakya claimed, could get 192 seats (plus/minus 11 seats) and the Trinamool Congress 100 seats (plus/minus 11 seats). The rest could get two seats (plus/minus two seats).
In numbers, this would translate to 181 to 203 seats for the BJP, 89 to 111 seats for the Trinamool and 0-4 seats for the rest.
The majority mark in the 294-member Bengal assembly is 148.
Health warning: Exit polls, though may not always get it right.
The BJP votes, Chanakya predicted, could come from Scheduled Caste and Tribes, the Trinamool appears to have its Muslim vote intact. There was speculation that the Muslim vote will split following the rebellion of party leader Humayun Kabir, who went on to form his own party, and the entry of AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi.
The vote share of the BJP, Chanakya predicted, will be 48 per cent (plus/minus 3 per cent) — a huge jump from the three seats and 10 per cent vote share it won in 2016. In 2021, the corresponding figure was 38 per cent and 77 seats.
The Trinamool, which registered its best performance in 2021 with 48 per cent votes and 277 seats, could be down to 38 per cent votes (plus/minus 3 per cent).
Yesterday, four exit polls had predicted an edge for the BJP and only two for the Trinamool Congress. Only one – Axis My India – refused to share its findings, declaring that the people were too fearful to talk and it has left them with very thin data from the ground.
Both BJP and Trinamool have gone all out in this year’s election, seen by many as a do-or-die battle for both sides.
After three straight terms since 2011 — when she toppled the 35-year CPM regime — many said this could be the toughest election Mamata Banerjee is facing in view of the sharper, more focussed campaign by the BJP and the mass voter deletions during the Special Intensive Revision of voter lists by the Election Commission.
In 2021, Banerjee’s party had polled 10 per cent more votes — 48 per cent to the BJP’s 38 per cent. The voter list revisions have pared down the voter list by more than 11.6 per cent in multiple districts where the Trinamool’s winning margin is slim.
Over the last decade, the BJP has been whittling away at the Trinamool’s advantage, relentlessly flagging corruption, law and order issues, women’s security and lack of development that has set back Bengal for over five decades. The party has also managed to have a firm footprint in the state.
