Kolkata: Refuting predictions made by a majority of exit polls for West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress registered a 45.77 per cent vote share in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal, up by more than two per cent from the 43.7 per cent of votes it received in 2019.
Translated into seats, the party romped home with an impressive number of 29 seats.
Compared to its 2019 performance, this meant that the TMC bagged seven more seats in the total repository of 42 seats in the state.
Considering the fact that the TMC registered a positive vote swing of 4.64 per cent in its favour even in 2019 despite what many consider a dismal performance by the party, in the wake of the BJP running home with 18 seats that year and registering a hike of a stupendous 22.2 per cent vote share in the process, the ruling dispensation of the state, to the delight of its leaders, certainly maintained an upwardly moving swing curve this year.
The satisfaction of TMC leaders is likely to be drawn largely from the fact that most exit pollsters had predicted a seven per cent downswing of party vote share in West Bengal this year to around 36 per cent or thereabouts.
The BJP, on the other hand, registered a vote share of 38.73 per cent in the state this time around which, also unlike what the pollsters had predicted, was down by over two per cent compared to the 40.6 per cent votes it received five years ago.
In real terms, the negative swing in the saffron camp cost the party nearly six seats compared with its previous tally of 18 seats.
For a party that officially aimed at winning at least 30 seats in the state, the loss is significant.
Also, to the surprise of many, the Left-Congress combine failed to arrest its momentum of downward vote swing it shockingly registered in 2019.
That year, the vote share of all Left parties together was down to a mere 7.5 per cent, a slide of a mammoth 16.72 per cent compared to its 2014 parliamentary poll performance. The Congress, on the other hand, could amass only 5.7 per cent of the total number of votes. Together, the duo had registered a 13.2 per cent vote share translating into two seats for the Congress and none for the Left.
This time, EC figures revealed, the Left attracted just 6.14 per cent of total votes polled in the state, the corresponding figure for the Congress stood at 4.68 per cent. Put together, the 10.82 per cent of vote share by the alliance left a negative vote swing of 2.38 per cent.
Translated into seats, that meant that the Left failed to open its account in the state yet again and the Congress was down to just one seat.
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