The ballots have been cast in India’s most hotly contested political battleground, and the only question on everyone’s mind is whether the BJP’s sustained project to breach Mamata Banerjee’s fortress of West Bengal has finally been successful.
Exit polls indicate that it has.
While the Axis My India exit poll data for West Bengal will be released on Thursday for greater accuracy because voting in the state has just ended, six other pollsters have released their numbers, and four of them have said the BJP is poised to come to power in the state for the first time.
Of 294 constituencies in the Bengal Assembly, with 148 required to get a majority, Praja Poll’s numbers will give any Trinamool Congress (TMC) supporter pause. The agency has predicted that the BJP will win 178-208 seats, up from 77 in 2021, while the TMC will be restricted to 85-110, down massively from 215.
P-Marq’s numbers state the BJP will win 150-175 constituencies and the Trinamool between 118 and 138. Live Updates
Matrize has predicted 146-161 seats for the BJP, and Poll Diary 142-171. These pollsters say the TMC will get 125-140 and 99-127, respectively.
On the other end of the spectrum is Janmat Polls, whose data states that the Trinamool Congress will get a thumping majority for the third straight time.
The agency has predicted between 195 and 205 seats for the Mamata Banerjee-led party and 80-90 for the BJP, which is very close to the figures both parties had in the 2021 elections.
Peoples Pulse has also said that the Trinamool Congress will win 177-187 constituencies while the BJP will be restricted to between 85 and 110.
On one point, though, all of the agencies agree – the Congress and the Left parties are set for a dismal performance once again. Most have predicted that both will be unable to open their accounts and the best numbers for these parties are from Poll Diary, which has given the Congress 3-5 seats and the Left 2-3.
Health warning: Exit polls often get it wrong.
How It Has Played Out So Far
If the polls have got it right, the BJP will have achieved something which is very rare in India’s electoral history. In a span of just a decade, the party would have gone from winning just three seats and having a vote share of 10.3% to getting a majority on its own.
And the journey has been gradual.
The Trinamool Congress got the first taste of the BJP as a rising force in Bengal, capitalising on the Left’s decline, when the party won 18 of 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The TMC was only marginally ahead with 22.
Realising that Assembly elections in 2021 could throw up a similar result, Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool then went all out with planning and campaigning, focusing on the Bengali identity and attempting to paint the BJP as an outsider. The efforts paid off, and the TMC got 277 seats against the BJP’s 77.
The Trinamool Congress redoubled its efforts in the Lok Sabha elections three years later and managed to restrict the BJP to just 12 seats while winning 29 itself.
But the vote share margin was always going to be a concern for the Trinamool, and the Special Intensive Revision, which reduced over 90 lakh voters from the rolls, appears to have played a role in making the contest even closer.
BJP leaders have also told NDTV that while it did not have party machinery on the ground in a big way in 2021, it has worked on having a presence in every booth ahead of this year’s polls.