New Delhi: The BJP is likely to make significant gains in West Bengal and Odisha, exit polls predicted Sunday evening, firmly expanding its footprint in the two states that the party was counting on to make up for its likely losses in the Hindi heartland.
According to the NDTV Poll of Polls, which took an average of all exit polls, the BJP is likely to win 14 of the 42 seats in West Bengal — up from two in 2014 — while it gave the Trinamool Congress 24 seats, down 10 from last time. The Congress and the CPI(M) are expected to get two seats each.
Most of the exit polls predicted a double-digit tally for the BJP in West Bengal — Times Now-VMR predicted 11 while and ABP News forecast 16.
Also read: Exit polls predict surge for Modi’s NDA, yet another drubbing for Congress
Changing landscape in Bengal
If the exit polls are indeed proven accurate on 23 May, it would herald the arrival of a new player in West Bengal, which was dominated by the Left for over three decades before the Trinamool Congress displaced it from its secure perch. The BJP would then emerge as the principal opposition party in the state, relegating the Left and the Congress to the margins.
The BJP had aggressively played the nationalism and religion card in West Bengal, and going by the exit polls, it seems to have helped the party expand its base. The election was also marked by widespread violence from word go, with the climax coming just before the seventh and final phase when alleged BJP supporters vandalised the statue of Bengali cultural icon Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar during a rally led by BJP president Amit Shah.
The violence forced the Election Commission to curtail the campaign by one day ahead of the final phase.
West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee was quick to dismiss the exit polls as “gossip”. In a tweet soon after the exit poll figures were out, Banerjee said: “I don’t trust exit poll gossip. The game plan is to manipulate thousands of EVMs through this gossip. I appeal to all opposition parties to be united, strong and bold. We will fight this battle together.”
The situation in Odisha
In Odisha too, the Poll of Polls has predicted a massive surge for the BJP, which won just one seat in 2014. It predicted that the BJP will win 11 of the 21 seats, leaving Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD), the ruling party in the state for nearly two decades, with just 10 — just half of its 2014 tally.
The BJP pitched its campaign around PM Narendra Modi and the issue of national security, so much so that in many constituencies, voters did not know who the BJP candidate was.
Also read: It’s BJP all the way in Delhi, exit polls predict 6-1 scoreline
The Congress seems to have lost its will to power. S S Ray was its last CM in Bengal forty years ago, J B Patnaik twenty years ago in Orissa. If a predominantly Hindi heartland party like the BJP has identified these two states as areas of growth and covered so much ground, this is something the Congress too could have attempted. The party has a pan Indian presence. Even picking up bits and pieces, upto five seats, in a large number of states brings it back into the game. It should identify strong regional parties with which it can form durable alliances and start its long trek back to relevance.