However, almost 82.80 percent of the total 6.55 crore electorate, which exercised their franchise across 77,247 polling stations in the elections held over six phases on seven dates from April 4 to May 5, proved Mamata’s detractors miserably wrong.
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Rejecting the predictions made by the exit polls, a “combined” Opposition chose to differ with them, arguing that because of fear factor that prevails in the state, known for its history of political violence, the final picture would be different. This meant that, unlike Kerala, a significant section of its cadre was not used to being out of power in West Bengal.
Siliguri Mayor and former Left Front Minister Asok Bhattacharya (CPI-M) is leading by 6,987 votes from Siliguri seat in North Bengal. (See this paper by Pranab Bardhan, for example.) If the patron-client hypothesis were true, loss of power in 2011 should have led to a desertion in the party’s ranks. She should remember that Bengal voted for her not her party i.e. TMC. The trend is in complete contrast to Kerala, where despite losing power there was no desertion in the ranks.
Prominent TMC candidates who won include State Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee from Ballygunge seat who defeated Congress’ candidate Krishna Debnath, Education Minister Partha Chatterjee from the Behala Paschim seat against his nearest rival Kaustav Chatterjee of the CPI-M, Trinamool leader and minister Arup Roy retained his Howrah Central seat. The vote share of the party is on a declining trend since 2006 Assembly elections. He though noted the BJP’s voting percentage during the polls shown decline vis-a-vis its 2014 Lok Sabha election performance. However, it is the support of its 12 MP’s in Rajya Sabha that makes it a key player as the Modi government would need the Trinamool’s support in the upper house to push forward several key legislations.
The opposition Congress Party won 13 seats while it was ahead in 32 constituencies. With seat-wise votes available now, this analysis can be taken a step further.
Election Commission on 19 May 2016 announced results of 2016 Legislative Assembly Election of West Bengal.
While the vote share of NOTA has jumped from 1.1% in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when it was first introduced in EVMs and ballot papers, to 1.5% in the recently-held 2016 assembly polls in the state, in Puducherry the vote share of NOTA was the highest with 1.7% among all the five states.
Interestingly, if one adds up the number of votes garnered by the Congress-Left alliance and the BJP (Netaji Subhas Bose’s grand-nephew Chandra Bose contested for the saffron party againsr Banerjee), then it is more than Banerjee’s tally of 65,550 votes. The CPI (M), on the hand, had won 40 seats in 2011, sixteen more this time. But this would be the path to complacency, which undid the Left Front. It’s clear now that the Left is a spent force; the dark days of Left Front rule are not coming back. The figure went much above the 200-mark in the just concluded polls and the party now commands more than two-thirds majority.
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The Trinamool seemed to be sweeping away all opposition in all but two of the 20 districts in the eastern state.
