The BJP’s juggernaut rolled on imperiously in Bengal as the lotus bloomed in 18 Lok Sabha and four Assembly bypoll seats with 40.2 per cent vote share.
The BJP’s sterling display sent the Left Front to the abyss of oblivion, decimated the Congress to mere two and restricted the ruling Trinamool Congress to 22, a slump by 12 seats.
The BJP romped home in 18 Lok Sabha seats, which is an astronomical jump from two in 2014, and also notched up facile victories in four Assembly bypoll seats of Darjeeling, Habibpur, Krishnaganj and Bhatpara.
The BJP, whose meteoric rise in the state sent Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee into a jittery, added to its kitty, besides Darjeeling and Asansol, Barrackpore, Bankura, Bishnupur, Cooch Behar, Hooghly, Medinipur, Jhargram, Ranaghat, Bongaon, Malda North, Bardhaman-Durgapur, Alipurduar, Raigunj, Balurghat, Jalpaiguri and Purulia Lok Sabha seats.
The saffron party made a clean sweep in North Bengal, clinically decimating its Oppositon in the region by pocketing all the six seats of Darjeeling, Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Raigunj, Balurghat and Alipurduar.
As far as Assembly segments are concerned, while the BJP made deep forays and notched up victories in 129 segments, the Trinamool Congress in 158 and the Congress in seven.
However, the Trinamool Congress’ vote share took a high from 39.7 per cent in 2014 to 43.3 per cent this time, while the BJP made a huge gain, buttressing its share by more than 20 per cent to 40.2 from its earlier 17 per cent. The Congress’ vote share nosedived to 5.5 per cent from 9.6 in 2014, while the Left Front’s vote share slumped to any extent from 29.9 per cent in 2014 to 7.5 per cent in 2019. The CPI(M)-led Left Front bled so heavily this time that the party had to face the ignominy of not having a single representative in the Lower House from the state.
There’s, however, a ray of hope for the Trinamool Congress as the party maintained its sway over the five Lok Sabha seats in the city and its surroundings chalking up convincing victories in Kolkata North, Kolkata South, Jadavpur, Dum Dum and Barasat, which includes the plush Salt Lake, even as there was a surge of vote share for the saffron brigade in these constituencies.
The saffron wave was so much in the state that the party snapped at heels of even former railway minister and Congress stalwart Abu Barkat Ghani Khan Chaudhury’s citadel of Malda, where Congress-turned-Trinamool heavyweight Mausam Noor licked dust at the hands of BJP’s Khagen Murmu.
The exit poll prediction, which Banerjee dubbed ”exit poll gossip”, turned true in the state, and party national president Amit Shah said in Delhi the party would expand its base and organisation in Bengal from now on with an eye on the assembly poll in 2021.
Barring cinester Moon Moon Sen from Asansol, all the star contenders from Bengal like Babul Supriyo and Locket Chatterjee of the BJP, and Mimi Chakravarty, Dipak Adhikary (Deb), Nusrat Jahan and Shatabdi Roy of the Trinamool Congress made their ways into Parliament. (UNI)
