Summary of First Phase of West Bengal Assembly Elections

Summary of First Phase of West Bengal Assembly Elections

By Deepak Parvatiyar

April 4, 2016

- See more at: http://www.elections.in/blog/summary-first-phase-west-bengal-assembly-elections/#sthash.kTlTQRyP.dpuf

About 80 per cent of the 40,09,000 votes were polled till 5 pm in the 18 of the 294 Assembly constituencies in the three districts of Purulia, West Midnapore and Bankura in the first phase of the six-phase elections in West Bengal on 4 April.

However, polling was less than what was registered in 2011 assembly elections as well as in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in these constituencies. In the 2011 assembly polls, the voter turnout here was 83.72 per cent and in 2014, it was 83.39 per cent.

Total 393 companies of central forces as well as 12,000 state police personnel were deployed to ensure peaceful polling during the first phase. Significantly, 13 of these constituencies were in the naxal-affected Junglemahal area of the state and out of 4, 945 polling booths, the Election Commission had marked 1,992 as hyper sensitive. Voting ended here at 4 pm.

Polling was largely peaceful in these 18 constituencies – Nayagram, Gopiballavpur, Jhargram, Salboni, Medinipur, Binpur, Bandwan (ST), Balarampur, Baghmundi, Joypur, Purulia, Manbazar (ST), Kashipur, Para, Raghunathpur (SC), Ranibandh (ST), Raipur (ST), and Taldangra.

In all, 133 candidates including 11 women were in the fray in the first phase with Purulia assembly constituency registering the highest number of candidates (12), followed by 10 in Bandwan (ST). In all, 19 Independents were in the fray in these constituencies.

Among the political parties, the ruling Trinamool Congress as well as the Bharatiya Janata Party are contesting all the 18 seats while Left Front constituents – Communist Party of India – Marxist, Communist Party of India and All India Forward Bloc – had respectively fielded 11, 1 and 1 candidates.

The Congress Party, which was an ally of the TMC in 2011 but now have a tacit understanding with the Left Front, had fielded 5 candidates avoiding any direct clash with the Left Front at Nayagram (ST), Jhargram, Balarampur, Baghmundi, and Purulia where the contest is largely triangular between the TMC, BJP and the Congress.

Incidentally, in the last assembly elections in 2011, the TMC had won 10 of these seats –Nayagram,Gopiballavpur, Jhargram, Salboni, Medinipur, Balarampur, Purulia, Manbazar (ST), Kashipur, Raghunathpur(SC).

The Congress, then an ally of the TMC, had won the Baghmundi and Para seats while the Left Front’s CPI-M had stood victorious at five — Binpur, Bandwan (ST), Ranibandh, Raipur (ST), Taldangra.
Another Left Front constituent, the AIFB, had then won the Joypur seat. In the 2014 elections, the TMC had won the Jhargram, Purulia and Medinipur parliamentary seats.

While the poll result will show the acceptance or rejection of the Congress’s Lal Salaam, the outcome of the elections in the naxal-hit constituencies could well be the a litmus test for the TMC supremo and state chief minister Mamata Banerjee for two reasons –

a) It would test her claims of restoring peace and development in the region where she had claimed almost 500 people used to be killed before she formed her government in 2011.

Already the TMC has claimed that the high turnout in phase one “proves the silent revolution” through “massive developmental work” by Mamata Banerjee in the Junglemahal in last five years.

b) It would determine the effect of the flyover collapse outside Kolkata

Obviously the TMC’s biggest poll plank in the region was that it had succeeded in stopping the politics of bloodshed in the region.

Incidentally, the Left Front lost the grip in the region from 2009 Lok Sabha elections onwards. In 2011, the Trinamool’s vote share had leapt from 26% to 47% in West Medinipur and it was further increased to 52% as against Left Front’s 29% in 2014.

- See more at: http://www.elections.in/blog/summary-first-phase-west-bengal-assembly-elections/#sthash.kTlTQRyP.dpuf