In West Bengal Mamata's TMC Leading In 33 Seats

The trends that emerged from several rounds of counting on Tuesday proved all exit poll predictions wrong as the Trinamool candidates are widening gap with their BJP rivals. The exit polls predicted a major surprise in West Bengal for the ruling Trinamool but the surprise came from the incumbent party as it went on to lead in 31 seats. If the trends hold true, BJP's performance dipped in 2024.

Trinamool had rejected the exit polls which gave a clear mandate to the BJP. “It is absolutely vague, absolutely fake. How is the media showing who will win which seat? How much money have they taken? I don’t believe the calculations. I will ask my workers to be strong and do the counting properly. We will get double of what the media has projected. I will not put a number. But I can tell you: we worked on the ground and never felt that the people will not vote for us,” Mamata Banerjee said.

"As we witnessed in 2016, 2019 and 2021, exit poll predictions were completely wrong. Why? Because BJP pays hefty sums to the Godi Media to create a wind and manipulate the final outcome. Smt. @MamataOfficial strongly condemned #ExitPolls, urging our party workers to stay strong and not be swayed by these deceptive tactics," the TMC said in a post on X.

"I have observed exit polls in 2016, 2019, and 2021, and none of them matched the actual poll results. I believe that the BJP manufactures these (exit polls) and feeds them to the media. In my opinion, regional parties like those of Akhilesh Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav, MK Stalin, and Uddhav Thackeray will perform well," Mamata said.

West Bengal went to the polls in seven phases with the Trinamool contesting alone and the CPM and the Congress as party of the INDIA bloc against the BJP.

In 2019, the difference between the Trinamool and the BJP was not major either. Trinamool secured 22 seats, the BJP 18.

Key candidates

BJP's Nisith Pramanik (Cooch Behar), Shantanu Thakur (Bongaon), Abhijit Gangopadhyay (Tamluk), Locket Chatterjee (Hooghly), Trinamool's Yusuf Pathan (Baharampur), Mahua Moitra (Krishnanagar), Dev (Ghatal), Rachana Banerjee (Hooghly), Saayoni Ghosh (Jadavpur), June Malia (Medinipur), Shatrughan Sinha (Asansol), Abhishek Banerjee (Diamond Harbour) are some of the key candidates of this election.

CPM's Srijan Bhattacharya (Jadavpur), Saira Shah Halim (Kolkata Dakshin), actor Debdut Ghosh (Barrackpore) have also been at the centre of the campaign buzz.

Two possible scenarios in West Bengal: What do they mean

If the BJP edges past the Trinamool and emerges as the largest party in Bengal, it will be a huge gain for the Saffron party and Bengal so far resisted the Saffron advent in the eastern part. If the Trinamool maintains dominance but BJP narrows the gap, it will set tone for a tooth-and-nail fight for the assembly election.

Best-performing: What Modi predicted about West Bengal election result

Prime Minister Narendra Modi predicted that West Bengal would be the BJP's best performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha election and that the party will get maximum success in the state. “In Bengal elections, TMC party is fighting for existence. You must have seen it in the last Assembly elections, we had three seats. The people of Bengal took us from three to 80. We got a lot of support in the Lok Sabha in the last elections. This time, the best-performing state in India is going to be West Bengal. BJP is getting most success in West Bengal,” PM Modi said._HT