West Bengal Phase 2 Voting: High Turnout Transforms TMC Strongholds Into Battleground

The second phase of vote to elect who will govern Bengal for the next five years has now got one extra unlikely parameter after the first phase's stupendous voting percentage of more than 93%: how many voters will turn out at the polling booth. This has turned the vote in what should have been the Trinamool's zone of comfort into a battle of arithmetic and nerves, with the party in office trying to cash in on an anti-SIR sentiment, the opposition BJP trying to cash in on an anti-incumbency sentiment and both parties trying to crystal-gaze into what an unprecedented voter turnout may mean.

Conventionally, a voter-turnout bump has meant a larger vote share for the anti-incumbent. But, when the voter-turnout bump enters a zone where it has never gone before (as what happened in the 152 seats that voted in the first phase and what may happen again today because of SIR fears), conventional calculations can go awry. Both parties' poll managers seem to have understood this though their leaderships' public broadcasts may have been more swag and brag.

The seven districts going to vote today - Kolkata, North and South 24 Parganas, Nadia, Howrah, Hooghly and East Burdwan - have been Trinamool's bastion, with some pockets of resistance concentrated in a few places in North and South 24 Parganas, Nadia and Hooghly. The BJP has enjoyed a degree of popularity with sections of voters: Matuas in Nadia and North 24 Parganas, the non-Bengali-speaking population in the industrial belt in North 24 Parganas and largely agrarian areas in some pockets of Hooghly. The ISF, likewise, is confined to a belt in the Bhangar-Canning belt on the southern fringes of Kolkata. But, largely, these seven districts have held the key to Nabanna for the Trinamool.

In 2021, for instance, Trinamool won 123 of the 142 seats going to vote today (see graphic). But this time, after 15 years in office, Trinamool candidates and their flag-bearers have encountered some amount of resistance even in areas that have been voting for the party since it was the Left Front's main opposition in Bengal (from 1997 to 2011). Trinamool foot soldiers have had to slog extra hard in several constituencies in Kolkata, from Jorasanko and Shyampukur in the north to Chowringhee in the middle to Rashbehari in the south. And assembly opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari's entry in CM Mamata Banerjee's lair has spiced up what should have been a Bhowanipore no-contest.