Chasing an ambitious tally of beyond 400 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is counting on a quantum leap in Trinamool Congress-ruled West Bengal to get anywhere close to its intended target.
The Opposition fury and perceived public anger over the alleged horrific incidents in Sandeshkhali and the spontaneous protests they provoked, as well as the arrest of sitting TMC ministers and senior leaders in connection with the alleged ration and primary teacher recruitment scams are likely to emerge as big political talking points and may even hurt the ruling party’s prospects going into the Lok Sabha elections.
With just a day to go before the dates for the crucial general elections are notified, is West Bengal headed for a saffron surge or will the ruling TMC hold its own in Mamata’s home state?
According to an opinion poll survey by ABP-CVoter, the TMC is likely to not just hold off a saffron sweep of the state but also top the seat tally.
If the projected numbers in the ABP-CVoter survey are anything to go by, the TMC will finish top of the pile in the state with 23 seats, with the BJP trailing closely at 19, bettering their 2019 tally by a single seat.
Despite being vocal against the Mamata Banerjee government over the alleged events in Sandeshkhali and other issues, the Left and the Congress are projected to come a cropper in the state.
Further according to the survey, the TMC is likely to hog 41.9 per cent of the total votes polled in the state while the BJP will finish at 40.6 per cent, thereby indicating a close and bruising battle in Bengal.
Burying its hopes of an alliance with the Congress in the state, the TMC, earlier, announced candidates for all 42 Lok Sabha seats during a massive show of strength in the heart of Kolkata.
While the ruling party in the state decided to go solo, there is no official word yet on whether the Left Front and Congress would fight the upcoming polls in the state together as they did in the 2021 Assembly elections.
Meanwhile, ABP-CVoter also conducted a survey trying to gauge the general opinion of the people on the Central and state government’s performance over the last five years.
Asked about their take on the Centre’s performance, 31.31% said they were very satisfied, 40.4% said they were satisfied to some extent, while 26.34% said they were not satisfied.
Quizzed on state government’s performance, 27.15% expressed satisfaction, 28.6% said they were somewhat satisfied, while 42.51% said they weren’t satisfied at all.
Asked about their opinion on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s performance, 31.84% expressed satisfaction, 30.9% said they were somewhat satisfied, while, 37.06% said they were not satisfied.
On PM Modi’s performance, 43.78% said they were very satisfied, 35.37% said they were satisfied to an extent, while, 19.98% said they weren’t satisfied.
Asked about their choice of PM face, 63.94% pitched for PM Modi, while 29.26% supported Rahul Gandhi. Another 3.32% said they preferred neither of them.
[Disclaimer: Current survey findings and projections are based on CVoter Opinion Poll Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) conducted among 41,762 adults, all confirmed voters. The surveys were conducted from February 1 to March 10, 2024. The data is weighted to the known demographic profile of the States. Sometimes the table figures do not sum to 100 due to the effects of rounding. The final data has socio-economic profiles within +/- 1% of the demographic profile of the states. We believe this will give the closest possible trends. The sample spread is across all 543 electoral constituencies in the country. The margin of error is +/- 5% and the vote share projections have been done with 95% confidence interval.]