A few hours from the counting in 42 Lok Sabha seats of West Bengal one question is intensely discussed.
It is now evident that the Left’s vote will switch to the right — which it has been over the last years — but would it be a landslide shift in 2019?
If the results of the last four Bengal elections — two Lok Sabha [2009 and 2014] and two Assembly [2011 and 2016] — are taken into consideration, a clear picture evolves which is absolutely ominous for the ruling Trinamool Congress [TMC].
A broadbrush analysis indicates that Communist Party of India-Marxist [CPI(M)] and Left Front have steadily declined since 2009 Lok Sabha poll, while the Bharatiya Janata Party has grown, albeit not without hiccups in 2016 Assembly poll, since 2014.
Vote share quite impressive in 2009
In 2009, CPI(M) and Left Front’s vote share was 33.1 and 43.3, quite an impressive one in 2019 when the State is facing a four-cornered contest.
The BJP was clearly not a force in 2009 and their policy was to back TMC against the Left Front. A BJP-leader, now a Governor, told this correspondent so after Bengal’s land agitation in 2006-07.
The BJP got 6.14% in 2009 Lok Sabha poll, while the TMC was at a modest 31.18, replacing Congress as the main opposition party in the State.
A decade later, in the Assembly election of 2016, the TMC polled 44.91%, while the CPI-M and the Left Front were at 19.75 and 25.69 respectively.
It was a drop of 13% for CPI(M) and 22% for the Left in seven years.
TMC in trouble?
If this slide continues for the CPI-M and the Left, the TMC would be in serious trouble as the vote of Left — predominantly an anti-Mamata vote, will only move to the BJP, the key anti-Mamata player in the State.
In such a situation, the gap between TMC and the BJP will reduce.
Meanwhile, the TMC managed to maintain its share and even increase it and so did the Congress which is oscillating between 10-12% over the last decades.
But the real gainer is the BJP.
The BJP’s share went up from 6.14 in 2009 to 17.02 in 2014, indicating that the party is growing in Bengal as the Left is sliding.
However, while the State clearly voted for Narendra Modi in 2014, it remained with Mamata Banerjee in 2016.
Thus, the BJP’s vote share dropped from 17.02 in 2014 to 10.16 in 2016 Assembly poll, while the TMC’s increased from 39.79 to 44.91.
“This indicates while Bengal voted for Dada [Modi] in Lok Sabha, it opted for Didi [Mamata Banerjee in the Assembly,” said Soumya Basu, a Chartered Accountant and avid election observer.
Such observation perhaps is the only hope for the TMC as it is now almost inevitable that the Right will score at the cost of the Left in Bengal in 2019.
But to what extent?
“That is the big question, whether the BJP will be able to convert the gain in percentage to seats,” Mr. Basu said.
The answer would be known in few hours.
