This will give the TMC an upper hand in case the Grand Old Party has a poll alliance with TMC in the larger context for Lok Sabha
By: Robin Roy- The Writer Is Senior Associate Editor, Free Press Journal, Mumbai
The bypolls are over and even as it is a known fact that the ruling party makes the best out of the bypoll results… a close look at how the ruling party fared in these bypolls would certainly paint an extremely dismal picture of the Opposition in West Bengal.
TMC on November 2 made a clean sweep in the Assembly bypolls after it won in all the four seats.
Even as TMC secured landslide victories in these elections, one constant factor that needs to be acknowledged is that the BJP remained as the main Opposition even as the saffron party saw how they “dropped” the Shantipur and Dinhata catches.
POINTS TO BE NOTED
TMC is growing stronger by the day: Despite the fact that the BJP had pressed into service all its stalwarts for the Assembly polls earlier this year… the May 2, 2021 outcome script went horribly awry for the saffron party while Mamata Banerjee had the last laugh.
After the massive win against the BJP, it was evident that TMC would shift its focus pan-India. However, this did not mean that the TMC would loosen its connect over West Bengal and take the bypolls lightly.
In the state Assembly polls held in March-April this year, the TMC received 48 per cent vote share.
In the Bhawanipore Assembly bypoll on September 30, Mamata garnered 71.9 per cent votes and the party bagged a total 60.2 per cent votes in the election at Samserganj and Jangipur seats held on the very same day.
In the November 2 victory in all the four bypolls, the TMC logged in a major 75 per cent combined vote share. With this, the party now has a strength of 217 MLAs in the House.
Moreover, the party enjoyed straight drive wins with record differences. Udayan Guha won the Dinhata seat in Cooch Behar district by 1,64,089 votes.
In Gosaba, Subrata Mondal of the TMC was triumphant by a winning margin of 1,43,051 votes. In Khardah, Sovandeb Chattopadhyay won by a margin of 93,832 votes. It may be noted that Sovandeb had given up his Bhawanipore seat for Mamata.
TMC nominee from Shantipur, Braja Kishor Goswami managed to win by a margin of 64,675 votes.
BJP not getting the grasp?: Even as the BJP has come up to become the main Opposition to the TMC in the earlier held crucial Assembly polls… the saffron party has, it seems, lost quite a bit of steam.
Even as it failed to win any of the four (Assembly) seats, the party lost both Dinhata and Santipur seats.
Moreover, to add to their woes… BJP party candidates even lost their deposits in Dinhata, Gosaba and even in Khardah constituencies.
During the Assembly polls earlier this year, BJP’s vote share was pegged at 38 per cent. In Bhawanipore bypoll, the BJP’s vote share dipped to 22.3 per cent. In Samserganj and Jangipur Assembly elections, the combined vote share of BJP was 14.2 per cent.
However, in the bypolls, the party’s combined vote share stood at 14.5 per cent.
It may be noted that the party lost five of its “sulking” MLAs to the TMC since the Assembly polls were over. BJP MLAs who are now in the TMC are Tanmoy Ghosh, Mukul Roy, Biswajit Das, Krishna Kalyani and Soumen Roy.
They have not yet resigned from their posts and the unofficial tally of the BJP in the House is now 70, down from 77. Going by the trend and with the current election scenario… grapevine has it that more defections are likely.
Congress ‘deleted’, Left is out of focus but in frame: Although the party contested only one seat out of the four, the Congress candidate in Shantipur managed to get just a meagre 1.41 per cent votes and was slightly better that 0.92 per cent that is what the NOTA got.
Poll panel data reveals that the Congress ended up doing worse than NOTA. While it clocked only 0.37 per cent votes, NOTA bagged 1.07 per cent.
This will give the TMC an upper hand in case the Grand Old Party has a poll alliance with TMC in the larger context for Lok Sabha, it won’t be difficult for the TMC to garmer a lion’s share.
However, let’s look at the Left… LF did better and logged in 8.5 per cent votes, up from the 4.7 % it received during the state Assembly polls earlier this year.(The views expressed by the author are personal)
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