If elections were nothing but tallying previous vote shares, West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) boss Mamata Banerjee’s life could be a lot more hazardous than what it is. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, TMC polled 39.8 per cent votes in the state and so did the present alliance of Congress and the CPI(M)-led Left Front who were rivals then. With the same vote share as TMC had this time round, will the alliance get the same number of seats as TMC? And, more intriguingly, if the jackpot of 17 per cent votes that BJP, riding the Modi wave, won in 2014 shrinks this year, who will benefit more, TMC or the alliance?
The ‘alliance’ (mahagathbandhan) idea was successful in Bihar where RJD and JD(U) supporters were evenly distributed across the state. It is not possible in Bengal where Congress supporters are rolled tight into the only two Muslim-majority districts of Malda and Murshidabad, with a sprinkling in north Bengal. The left votes, on the contrary, are spread across the state, though it has got thinner with every election, standing at 29 per cent in 2014. If the alliance were there that year, its lead in 28 seats could be 95. But even that is way below the half-way mark in an assembly of 294 seats.