TMC, BJP to fight neck and neck in fifth phase of West Bengal polls

The fifth phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections, where 45 seats in six districts will go to polls on Saturday, is likely to witness a neck and neck contest between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the BJP. This becomes evident by the last Lok Sabha elections where the TMC led in 23 of the poll-bound seats and the BJP led in 22.

Even as the TMC won 31 out of these 45 seats in the 2016 Assembly elections and the BJP drew a blank, the saffron party’s vote share in these seats increased five-fold, which has TMC concerned.

The TMC’s vote share in these seats came down from 44.6 per cent in the last Assembly elections to 41.36 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Meanwhile, BJP’s vote share increased from 9.87 per cent to 44.75 per cent in those polls. The challenge for the BJP is to retain this vote share.

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The CPI(M) and Congress won five seats each in the 2016 Assembly elections. The Left Front got 28.07 per cent votes and its alliance partner Congress got 9.87 per cent votes. However, the Left Front’s vote share plummeted to 7.59 per cent and the Congress’ vote share came down to 2.99 per cent in 2019.

Out of the seven seats in Jalpaiguri district, the TMC won six and the Congress won one in the last Assembly elections. However, the tables were turned in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, with the BJP leading in six seats while TMC led only in one.

The BJP led in the one seat in Kalimpong district in the 2019 elections which was bagged by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) in the last Assembly elections.

The BJP led in all the five seats in Darjeeling districts in the last Lok Sabha elections. In the 2016 state polls, two of these five seats were won by the GJM, Congress won two and the CPI(M) won one. The GJM did not contest in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

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A similar situation was seen in Nadia district where out of the eight poll-bound seats, the TMC won five, Congress won two and the CPI(M) won one seat. However, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP led in all eight seats.

The TMC is in a much better situation in the North 24 Paraganas district where out of the 16 poll-bound seats, it had won 14 in the last Assembly elections and led in the same number of seats in the 2019 elections.

As for the East Bardhaman district, the TMC won seven out of the eight poll-bound seats in 2016 and led in all the seats in 2019.

The fates of TMC Ministers Sujit Basu, Tapash Roy, Bratya Basu, Siddiqulah Chowdhury along with former Minister Madan Mitra will be decided in the fifth phase. BJP’s celebrity candidate Parno Mitra will also be in the fray. More than 1 crore voters will cast their votes in the fifth phase where 319 candidates will be fighting.