The Bengal Verdict: General Elections 2019

So the long drawn Indian general elections is coming to an end. Many journalists are predicting that Bengal is the real battle ground state this year. The amount of rallies that Mr. Amit Shah and Mr. Narendra Modi did in Bengal this time also points to the same fact. But is Ms. Mamata Banerjee losing ground? Will the BJP upsurge in Bengal lead to a lot of seats? Read on!
 
In 2014, TMC got 39% votes and won 34 seats, BJP got 17% and won 2 seats, Left Front got close to 30% votes and won 2 seats and Congress got 9.5% and won 4 seats.
 
The vote share of Congress is concentrated in a pocketful of seats and that will more or less continue to remain the same. The real churn is expected between BJP and the Left Front. Its being generally felt a large scale Left Front votes is shifting to BJP this time. Also a few disenchanted voters of TMC is also moving to BJP in some pockets. What does that mean in the overall picture?
 
TMC might end up with 38% votes, BJP 33%, Left 15% and Congress 10%. So what this proves is that Vote Share wise it will be a close election in bengal but the gap between BJP and TMC will still be 5% and thats still quite a big gap because the margins of most seats won by TMC was quite big in 2014. BJP will wrest seats where there are multi-cornered contests or close fights.
 
Now lets look into the seats scenario:
 
Out of the 42 seats in Bengal, the seats where BJP is in with a real fighting chance are these:
 

1. Alipurduas
2. Asansol
3. Balurghat
4. Bongaon
5. Bankura
6. Bardhaman Purba
7. Bardhaman Durgapur
8. Barrackpore
9. Bashirhat
10. Birbhum
11. Bolpur
12. Coochbehar
13. Darjeeling
14. Dumdum
15. Hooghly
16. Jalpaiguri
17. Jhargram
18. Kolkata North
19. Krishnanagar
20. Malda North
21. Medinipur
22. Purulia
23. Raiganj
24. Ranaghat
25. Srerampur

 
Now putting the principal of 50% left front votes going to BJP, how many seats does actually BJP has a chance of winning? Lets find out.
 

1. Alipurduas
2. Asansol
3. Darjeeling
4. Kolkata North
5. Krishnanagar
6. Purulia
7. Raiganj

 
So realistically even after so much hype, I don’t expect BJP to win more than 7 seats in Bengal. The Congress strongholds of Malda South & Bahrampur will remain with Congress. 2 closely contested seats of Jangipur and Murshidabad can go to TMC or Congress.
 
So my prediction on Bengal standing today is:
INC: 2-4
BJP: 7
TMC: 31-33
 
I will be very surprised if this doesn’t hold on 23rd May 2019.
 

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