Bengal bypoll result doesn’t reflect future state elections

In West Bengal’s Sagardighi Assembly constituency’s by-election, the Trinamool lost the seat it had won in 2011, 2016, and in 2021. While the Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee considered an ‘immoral alliance’ responsible for her party’s defeat, the development has left Trinamool’s opponents a reason to ponder.

Of the 1,85,142 votes cast in the by-election, the Trinamool candidate Debashish Banerjee received 34.94% votes, BJP’s Dilip Saha got 13.94%, and the Left-supported Congress candidate Bayron Biswas received 47.35%. The by-election was necessitated by the death of Trinamool’s sitting MLA, last December.

Just two years ago, in 2021, of the 1,86,816 votes, Trinamool’s score was 50.95%. The BJP was at the second spot with 24.08% of votes, and the Congress candidate was third with 19.45% of votes. Way back in 2016, Trinamool’s score stood at 26.23% of the votes cast, the Congress had 23.18%, the CPM 23.05%, and the BJP stood fifth with 4.31% votes.

Sagardighi Assembly constituency had been a CPM seat since 1977, before Trinamool got it in 2011, and was with the Congress, traditionally, before that.

Considering the 2016 count, the Congress and the CPM votes put together (in vote %), add up close to what the Left-backed Congress candidate got in the recent by-election.

What Mamata refers to as the ‘immoral alliance’, is the ‘transfer’ of BJP’s votes to the winning candidate. “If they want to defeat Mamata Banerjee with help of the BJP, then how will they say they are anti-BJP?” Mamata has stated.

But again, BJP had just over 4% of votes in 2016. Another way to look at it is that the voters, after voting for the BJP in large numbers in 2021, swayed away in the 2023 by-election.

The Trinamool’s ‘alliance’ for 2024, as Mamata said, is with the people. So it’s Trinamool versus the rest, and there’s a possibility that voters who are not in favour of Trinamool may vote, splitting into the major Opposition camps.

“Voters are independent of party affiliations. A large section of voters there felt that Trinamool failed to deliver, and they, including from the minority community, voted for Congress,” Soumya Aich Roy, chairman, outreach and communication, West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, said.

Reacting on the claim that BJP-votes got ‘transferred’, Roy said, “Those who felt the BJP can’t fight the Trinamool, they voted for us. Voters don’t belong to a party, so how can the chief minister say there was transfer of votes?” adding, “We have been in favour of the alliance since 2016. The Left, too, has been cooperative. People in general, if they are in favour of aligning, they will.”

Political analyst Udayan Bandyopadhyay, however, says that not much should be generalised at the state level, based on a by-election. “What we see is due to anti-incumbency in the constituency concerned. A reason could also be dissatisfaction with candidates. It’s a bypoll. As far as a Left-Congress alliance is concerned, it’s good for state’s politics. But the Sagardighi development should not be considered something that can be replicated in the future elections."