Counting of votes to decide the fate of 8,049 candidates is in process. According to the early leads, PM Narendra Modi's BJP has crossed the halfway mark on its own. Interestingly, NDA is ahead in more than 300 seats. The BJP is performing well in almost all states, including the three heartland states i.e. Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Adding to it, it is also ahead in Karnataka and Delhi. However, the Congress is ahead only in Punjab and Tamil Nadu, where it joined hands with the DMK.
Currently, TMC is leading in 24 seats and BJP is leading in 17 seats restricting Congress to 1 seat. The rout for CPM looks complete in this election as the vote share for the party has come down to only 6% from around 29% in 2014.
Though, BJP leader Mukul Roy expected around 12 to 15 % of vote transfer from CPM. It appears that over 20% votes from the Left went to BJP. Left regions gave maximum dividend to BJP, north Bengal, western part of the state, that is the tribal belt and the border constituencies.
BJP leading in Indo-Bangladesh border constituencies like Ranaghat, Krishnanagar, Bongaon. Here it can be assumed that citizenship amendment bill and NRC campaigns by PM Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah have been a hit .
It is to be noted that, the West Bengal voted in all seven phases of voting for Lok Sabha Elections 2019 on April 11, 18, 23, 29, May 6, 12 and 19. There are 42 seats in the state with prime parties being TMC, Congress, BJP and the Left. Here, the voting percentage in all seven phases was recorded to be between 80-82 per cent in the Loksabha Election 2019.
It is very clear that Modi wave has shaken Mamata Banerjee’s stronghold in West Bengal as also predicted by the exit poll. From the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, various exit polls predicted TMC of getting 24 seats, the BJP on 16, the Congress two and the Left Front drawing a blank.
In West Bengal, polling saw many incidents of violence across many constituencies. It was also delayed in many booths due to altercations between BJP and TMC workers. The Lok Sabha Elections 2019 were started on April 11 and concluded on May 19. Around 900 million voters exercised their right to vote and will decide the fate of 7,928 candidates across 542 seats in the country. There were 724 women and four were transgender candidates.
