The 2024 Lok Sabha results have thrown a spanner in the works. So far, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is leading in 237 seats and has won three, according to the Election Commission (EC) trends. The Opposition INDIA bloc would be taking heart as the vote counting proceeds, with its better-than-expected performance in key states.
Some of the major shockers for the ruling BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has come from the big states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra as well as West Bengal. Exit polls seemed to not have been able to gauge the mood of voters, especially in the eastern state led by the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
Here’s a look at how Bengal proved the exit poll predictions wrong.
West Bengal Lok Sabha results 2024
The ECI trends show that Mamata Banerjee’s TMC has not only defied the BJP challenge but also improved its seat tally compared to the 2019 elections.
The ruling party in Bengal is currently leading in 30 out of the 42 parliamentary constituencies, while the BJP is ahead in 11 and the Congress in just one. The TMC’s vote share is over 46 per cent, the BJP’s 38.20 per cent, and the Grand Old Party’s 4.65 per cent, according to the trends.
TMC’s Mahua Moitra, for whom it was a battle of prestige, has gained a lead of over 36,000 votes against the BJP’s Amrita Roy from the Krishnanagar seat.
TMC national general secretary and Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee has a massive lead of over 5.6 lakh votes in Diamond Harbour against the BJP’s Abhijit Das, as per the EC trends.
Congress veteran leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is trailing by 19,053 votes in the Baharampur constituency, with ex-cricketer and TMC candidate Yusuf Pathan ahead of him.
Shatrughan Sinha of the TMC has an edge of over 49,478 votes against the BJP’s Surendrajeet Singh Ahluwalia in Asansol.
West Bengal BJP president, Sukanta Majumder, is trailing Balurghat, and party leader Dilip Ghosh in Burdwan-Durgapur, as per the poll body’s trends.
In the Basirhat Lok Sabha constituency, which includes Sandeshkhali, the Trinamool’s SK Nurul Islam is leading by a margin of over one lakh votes against the saffron party’s Rekha Patra.
Union Minister of State Shantanu Thakur of the BJP has an advantage in the Bangaon seat of over 30,000 votes against the TMC’s Biswajit Das.
As of now, the Left Front is not in the picture in terms of seats. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has nearly six per cent vote share, EC trends show.
What exit polls predicted?
Nearly all exit polls forecast that the BJP will emerge as the single-largest party in West Bengal in terms of Lok Sabha seats.
The News18 Mega Exit Poll gave 21-24 seats to the saffron party and 43 per cent vote share, while the TMC was predicted to clinch 18 to 21 seats with 40 per cent of the total polled votes. The Congress-Left alliance was expected to win zero seats and a vote share of 12 per cent.
According to NDTV’s Poll of Polls, an aggregate of exit polls, the BJP was likely to win 23 seats and its rival TMC 18.
If India Today-My Axis’ exit poll were to be believed, the BJP would have won 26-31 seats, with the TMC reduced to 11 to 14 seats. It gave 0-2 seats to the INDIA bloc.
The Jan Ki Baat poll projected 21-26 seats for the BJP and 16-18 for the Trinamool Congress.
The India News-D-Dynamics predicted 21 seats for the BJP and 19 for Mamata Banerjee’s TMC.
The Republic Bharat-Matrize anticipated between 21 and 25 seats for the saffron party against the TMC’s 16-20.
Defying the projection of multiple exit polls, the TV 9 Bharatvarsh-Polstrat gave 24 seats to the TMC and 17 to the BJP. Similarly, News Nation predicted 22 for the ruling party in Bengal and 19 for the saffron party.
While most exit polls estimated up to two Lok Sabha seats for the INDIA group in Bengal, the R Bangla poll claimed it would fail to open an account.
Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had rejected these exit polls, alleging they were “manufactured at home” two months back.
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2019 Bengal Lok Sabha results
Although it failed to win most seats in Bengal, the BJP had recorded a remarkable performance in the 2019 general elections.
The TMC was the single-largest party, winning 22 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the eastern state. The saffron party bagged 18 seats, while the Congress was reduced to two constituencies with a vote share of just 5.67 per cent.
The ruling party’s vote share increased from 39.05 in 2014 to 43.4 per cent in 2019. The BJP saw a significant surge in its vote share, winning over 40 per cent of the votes.
The Left did not win a single seat and its vote share plunged to 6.33 per cent in 2019 from 16.66 per cent, as per Deccan Herald (DH).
2014 Bengal Lok Sabha results
The TMC witnessed its best-ever performance in Lok Sabha polls in the state in 2014, sweeping 34 of the 42 seats.
It was victorious in 30 out of 31 seats in its stronghold of south Bengal. The party’s victory came at the cost of the Left Front led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) which won only two seats. In its bastion of north Bengal, the Left lost four seats – Cooch Behar, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri and Balurghat – to the TMC, as per PTI.
The Congress retained four of the six seats it had won in the 2009 polls.
Riding the Modi wave, the BJP made inroads in Bengal with two seats. Notably, its vote share jumped by 11.14 per cent.
Factors that did not work for BJP
The BJP has failed to establish its dominance in Bengal despite aggressively campaigning against Mamata and her party. The saffron party led a sustained campaign against the ruling TMC, targeting CM Banerjee and trying to utilise the anti-incumbency sentiment against her government.
The BJP leaders hit out at the ruling party over allegations of corruption and misrule. As per India Today, the issue gained traction in the state in the wake of the Central Bureau of India (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) investigations in Bengal, as even Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee was under the scanner.
The School Service Recruitment scam, the PDS scam, and others also featured in the electoral narrative against the TMC.
The saffron party also turned women’s accusations of atrocities and land grabs against Sheikh Shahjahan (now suspended from the TMC) and his aides into a hot-button topic in the Lok Sabha polls. In fact, PM Modi dialled the BJP’s candidate from Basirhat, which includes Sandeshkhali, Rekha Patra ahead of polls, indicating the party’s seriousness about winning the seat.
The purported video showing a local BJP leader claiming that women were paid to make sexual assault allegations could have worked for the TMC.
Both Modi and Banerjee evoked religion in their speeches during election campaigning in the state. As per The Hindu, the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) just before polls would have further polarised the votes on religious lines.
The Trinamool Congress banked on its welfare schemes, including the Lakshmir Bhandar initiative – the monthly financial aid to poor women in the state, and its Muslim voter base. While the BJP attacked the ruling party, accusing it of Muslim appeasement, Mamata’s party seems to have succeeded in consolidating its voter base.
The results have also failed to break the bipolar contest between the BJP and TMC established in 2019, as the Left-Congress could not leave a significant mark. “The most important fallout is that this election has ended the binary narrative in Bengal politics. In the days to come, we will see triangular and more complex political battles,” veteran political analyst Biswajit Bhattacharya had told Frontline. Whether this will happen or not, remains to be seen.
The 2024 Lok Sabha results show the BJP remains TMC’s top contender in Bengal. With its eyes on the 2026 Assembly elections now, the saffron party needs to get its act together to defeat Mamata.
With inputs from agencies
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