West Bengal Election - The Power Of Nine

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the nine districts of south Bengal delivered 19 of 22 seats for the Trinamool Congress (TMC). In terms of assembly segments, it translated into 138 seats—two thirds of the TMC tally in the last assembly election held in 2016. Barely months from now, the party’s performance in these very districts will be critical in determining Mamata Banerjee’s fate in a ‘do or die’ electoral battle against the BJP. The nine districts are: Nadia, North 24 Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly, Kolkata, South 24 Parganas, Bardhaman, Birbhum and East Medinipur, which together hold 178 assembly seats.

- Romita Datta

Winning Bengal is still a tall order for the BJP even though the party came within sniffing distance in the last general election—its seat tally of 18 was just four shy of the TMC’s 22, and its vote share (40 per cent) just 3 percentage points behind the TMC’s 43.3 per cent. For a simple majority in the 294-member assembly, a party needs 148 seats, and going by the Lok Sabha poll results, the TMC appears reasonably well-placed to win a third consecutive term.

In the BJP’s reckoning, though, a lot has changed since May 2019. Buoyed by the defection of TMC heavyweights like Suvendu Adhikari, who wields clout in south Bengal’s East Medinipur, Hooghly, Howrah, South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas districts as well as the tribal belt in the state’s west, and erosion in the TMC ranks at the grassroots, the BJP is confident of realising its ‘Ebar Bangla (Now Bengal)’ dream. “We have a strong line-up of heavyweights in Howrah, Hooghly, Kolkata, Birbhum and East Medinipur. At least seven MPs and 40 MLAs from the TMC, Congress and the Left are ready to join us,” claims Saumitra Khan, the BJP MP from Bishnupur.

THE ‘M’ FACTOR