Summary of Second Phase of West Bengal Elections
April 17, 2016
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has effectively performed this practice more often than not in successive elections: exploit outdated elections laws to ensure he is able to campaign for the BJP on a polling day! He did it again, in West Bengal this time, at a time when the second phase of polling was going on in seven West Bengal districts of Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Darjeeling, Malda, Birbhum, Uttar Dinajpur and Dakshin Dinajpur on 17 April.
Modi Continues Poll Campaign in Bengal
Modi addressed rallies in Krishnanagar and Kolkata where elections are due in later phases. He went all out to attack his rivals, particularly incumbent Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee in his addresses. Will his sabre-rattling impact the voters in the poll-bound districts today, is to be seen considering the BJP, despite contesting 53 seats in the region, indeed didn’t have any base in these districts. It had failed to open its account in the region in 2011.
TMC Faces Litmus Test
If at all any party faces the litmus test in these seven districts, it is the TMC. It faces a tough fight from the Left-Congress combine in the region. Of the 56 assembly seats, the TMC and the Congress – then a TMC ally – had won 18 seats each in the 2011 assembly elections as against the Left Front’s 15. The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha had won 3 seats then while the remaining two had gone to Independents.
Reasons for BJP to feel Optimistic
Statistics could be disturbing for the TMC now as the combined vote share of the Left and the Congress in the region was 57.9% in 2011 as against the TMC’s 22%. Obviously, these six districts are crucial for the Left and Congress to upset the TMC in West Bengal. Yet, Modi and the BJP could well feel optimistic by the fact that its vote share had risen considerably – from 5.5% in 2011 to 22.9% in the region during 2014 Lok Sabha elections. In fact, the saffron brigade was only a fraction behind the TMC (23%) in terms of vote share in the region in 2014. It had then polled much higher than the Congress (15.9%). Yet, it was far behind the Left even then (26.5%). This time, whether a 79.20% voter turnout in the region till 5 pm can be attributed to the incumbency factor demands a close scrutiny. What is significant is that it was in this region that the seeds of a Left-Congress alliance were sown which is now popularly known as the “Siliguri Model”. The Left-Congress combine had won the Siliguri municipal corporation in 2015 which led to a larger alliance between the two erstwhile rivals before the state assembly elections.
Candidates Who Contested in Second Phase
While the TMC had fielded candidates from all 56 constituencies of the seven districts, the Left Front had fielded 17 CPI-M, 10 RSP, 6 AIFP and 1 CPI candidates, while the Congress had fielded 23 candidates. In all, 383 candidates, including 33 women were in the fray in the second phase. Some key candidates in the second phase included ace footballer Bhaichung Bhutia, who is contesting on a TMC ticket against CPI-M’s Ashok Bhattacharya from Siliguri assembly constituency. In all, 68 candidates (about 20 5 of the candidates in the fray in the second phase) faced criminal cases and the TMC and the BJP, with 13 each, topped the list of parties with maximum tainted candidates in this phase.
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