In the April 2022 bypoll, West Bengal’s ruling party, the Trinamool Congress (TMC), won Asansol Lok Sabha and Ballygunge assembly comfortably, defeating a BJP candidate as the nearest rival in Asansol and a CPI(M) candidate as the nearest rival in Ballygunge.
In Asansol of southwestern Bengal, actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha, a former BJP MP from Bihar, won by a big margin of 3.03 lakh votes. In Ballygunge of Kolkata, former Union minister Babul Supriyo, who joined the TMC last year, won comfortably with a margin of 20,000 votes. Supriyo's resignation from being the Asansol MP had necessitated the Asansol Lok Sabha bypoll, while Ballygunge's MLA, TMC veteran Subrata Mukherjee, died last year.
The results reaffirmed the trend seen since Mamata Banerjee’s party returning to power in May 2021 – the BJP and the Left taking the place of the TMC’s principal rival alternately, depending on the locality. In short, there is no clear mandate on who is the principal opponent, while the verdict in favour of the TMC as the ruling party is decisive. In no election held since May last year - six assembly by-polls, two delayed assembly election, one Lok Sabha bypoll and the statewide civic polls - has the TMC got less than 50% votes.
A similar situation prevailed in the state for some years (2014-2018) before a phase of large scale polarisation of opposition votes in favour of the BJP between 2019 and 2021. During 2019-21, polarisation of opposition votes towards the BJP was so complete that in 2021 the Left and the Congress failed to win a single assembly seat for the first time since Independence. However, since the saffron party’s tally stopped at 77 for a 294-seat assembly – way short of their expectations and claims – the popularity of the BJP seems to be on a downward spiral.
The Left and the Congress, once turned irrelevant, have started regaining significance.
This got reflected in the civic polls in more than 100 urban local bodies held earlier this year. Of the total 2,171 seats, the TMC alone won 1,872, while the BJP won 63, the Congress won 59 and the Left won 51.
Going by vote share, in Dakshin Dinajpur district, the Left’s share stood at 21.53% and the BJP’s stood at 20.27%, while the TMC secured 57.33% of the polled votes. In Jalpaiguri, the Left’s vote share stood at 15.12% and the BJP’s was 14.1%, while the Congress also got 11.07% of the polled votes.
In Uttar Dinajpur and Malda districts, the BJP was clearly the main opposition, while in Murshidabad it was the Congress. In Cooch Behar and Alipurduar, the BJP was ahead of the Left in votes share but in North 24-Parganas and South 24-Parganas, two of the state’s largest districts and neighbouring Kolkata, the Left emerged as the main rival of the TMC.
Among south Bengal districts, the BJP was clearly the main rival in East Midnapore, West Midnapore, Paschim Bardhaman, Purulia and Howrah districts, while the Left was the main rival in Hooghly and Purba Bardhaman. In Bankura, the BJP’s vote share stood at 18.73% and the Left’s at 14.75%, while in Jhargram the Left’s share (17.94%) stood above the BJP’s (13.95%).
Though this trend is of the state’s urban areas – the rural trends can be better understood in the panchayat elections due next year – it does indicate that the opposition vote is going to remain divided in large parts of the state over the coming months, helping the state’s ruling party enjoy political supremacy almost unchallenged.
“As of now, it seems the TMC’s principal rival will change from locality to locality. This would, of course, work in the TMC’s advantage, electorally, and we can expect to see a hegemony of the TMC in the coming days. How the TMC manages to deal with the flipside of hegemony remains to be seen,” said psephologist Biswanath Chakraborty, a professor of political science at Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata.
After the 2016 assembly election results demoralised the Left and Congress supporters in the state, the BJP had appeared as the main opposition on the streets even as they had only three MLAs against the Left-Congress combined strength of 76 MLAs. As a result of putting up better resistance to the TMC in the 2018 panchayat elections, the BJP managed to polarise the lion’s share of opposition votes in its favour in 2019 Lok Sabha election, securing a stunning 40% vote share and increasing its tally from 2 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 to 18 seats in 2019.
Between 2014 and 2018, almost all elections saw opposition votes getting divided between the declining Left, a rising BJP and a declining Congress. The TMC enjoyed a fantastic electoral fortune as the voters remained confused in picking their strongest rival.
In the February 2015 Bongaon Lok Sabha bye-election, the Left came second and the BJP third, but they swapped positions in the Krishnaganj Assembly by-poll. In the municipal elections, the BJP’s tally of 97 stood behind that of the Left (242) and the Congress (187), while the TMC stood far ahead with 1,428 seats. The November 2016 by-election to Cooch Behar Lok Sabha saw the BJP coming second, while in the Tamluk Lok Sabha constituency and Manteshwar assembly constituency the Left came second. In 2017, the BJP came second in Kanthi assembly bypoll but the Left came second in the Sabang assembly byelection.
Now, the BJP’s 2021 tally having managed to surpass the Left-Congress’ 2016 tally by only one seat despite the tall claims by the party’s top leaders seems to have led to a return of that scenario.
In the by-elections and delayed elections held since the assembly general elections, the BJP came second - though very distant second – in Jangipur,
Bhawanipur, Dinhata, Khardah and Gosaba, while the Congress came second in Samserganj. In Santipur, a seat that BJP won in May 2021 bagging 49.94% votes, the party came second in October with 23.22% vote share, while the Left came third with 19.57% of the votes polled.
"With many considering the BJP as a spent force and the Left showing signs of recovering some of the votes they had lost to the BJP, the TMC has entered a phase of unchallenged supremacy," said Udayan Bandyopadhyay, who teaches political science at Bangabasi College in Kolkata.
