Skip to main content

West Bengal Assembly Election 2021 - 1

 

Much has been written about BJP’s “saffron surge” in the last Lok Sabha election in West Bengal, which saw the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress face certain reverse.

Earlier, the results of 2016 Assembly election saw the TMC win 211 seats and the Congress 44. The latter’s “tactical ally” CPI(M) won 26, RSP – 3, AIFB – 2 and CPI – 1 assembly seats.

Percentage vote share of major political parties in West Bengal in Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections

Three seats each went to BJP and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha while an independent candidate won one.

West Bengal assembly comprises 294 constituencies.

On the other hand, in 2019 Parliamentary polls, without overwhelming support from Muslims, Mamata Banerjee's party could likely have slipped to the number two position.

Out of 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state, TMC won 22 and the BJP 18. The Congress managed to retain Baharampur and the Maldaha Dakshin seats.

Political debate over eight-phase assembly elections in West Bengal


In the last Parliamentary election, BJP trailed the TMC by only 3% votes. According to some political analysts, Mamata Banerjee’s party could win more seats with help of 65% of Muslim votes.

Muslims comprise 27% of the state's population. A significant split in this due to the United Front – with Congress, Left and Indian Secular Front of Abbas Siddiqui – joining the fray may not augur well for Mamata.

Though Parliamentary poll result does not necessarily reflect on Vidhan Sabha election outcome, in a highly polarised filed, the chips are slightly in the BJP’s favour – albeit theoretically…

(Featured photograph on top: Courtesy TMC party website/http://aitcofficial.org; BJP photo courtesy party media cell, Congress and Left courtesy Rana Patra)

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Khela Hobe: Connotation & Interpretation

                Photo Courtesy vaishnudebi-dutta-JShfWXJrAvc-unsplash As someone who knows Bengali (the language), I often wonder how to describe maal (Bengali: মাল ; Hindi: माल ). The word may have a different connotation in different contexts. With a simple Google translation comes the following suggestions: goods, property, booze, wealth, merchandise, revenue, freight, etc. In my life, I have come across various others: fool/idiot, good looking (mainly the fairer sex), difficult, sperm, cash, object, etc. Catch the drift? No? Because the tangential reference lies in the topic being discussed at the particular time the word was used in a sentence. Or try to catch the drift of the word in tandem with facial expression, or eye movement, or gesture. Even while uttering the word, a slow shake of head may refer to an idiot, a quick glance may mean reference to the person being glanced at, flicking the thumb off forefinger may mean money, mi...
Post a Comment
Read more

To My Colleagues Covering #CoronaScare

To colleagues working in their newsrooms or on the field in these days of Corona scare… To those comrades who will not or cannot isolate or quarantine themselves… To associates who will tomorrow again “cover” Parliament, the offices on Raisina Hill, or various hospitals, or other ‘beats’… From my hardworking young friend @IamNaveenKapoor handle I may not be anywhere there, but my thoughts, my wishes, my applause are always for you, with you… When countrymen open their newspapers, switch on to a news channel or log onto a news-site, they will know what they want to know because you were there to source out what you know they will want to know… When such calamities strike, editors scramble reporters to ground zero. And this time, it’s ground zero everywhere! What is worse – and what I can understand – your beat, your daily reporting will become tougher and tougher as the “society is walled off”. And the times aren’t good for either news or for the media industry a...
Post a Comment
Read more