Amid the jubilation in the ruling Trinamool Congress over the party winning 29 of the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal, there is a statistical itch in the vote share percentage which it cannot overlook.
Poll statistics show that though the Trinamool Congress’ vote percentage improved from the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, it declined when compared to the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections.
On the other hand while the vote share of both BJP and Congress-Left Front alliance declined from what it was in 2019, the same marginally improved from what it was in 2021.
According to statistics available with the office of the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), the Trinamool Congress which won 29 Lok Sabha constituencies this time, bagged 45.76 per cent of the total votes polled.
Though an improvement from the 43.3 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls this figure is lower than the 48.02 per cent it got in the 2021 Assembly elections after which Mamata Banerjee became the Chief Minister for the third-consecutive term.
On the contrary the BJP’s vote share in the state this time stands at 38.73 per cent which shows a marginal improvement from the figure of 38.15 per cent in the 2021 Assembly elections.
However, the figure of 2024 for the BJP is significantly down from 40.7 per cent, when the saffron camp achieved its best-ever electoral performance in West Bengal by winning 18 seats.
The same is evident in case of the Congress- Left Front alliance, which this time bagged a vote share percentage of 10.35, an improvement from 7.66 in the 2021 Assembly polls but a decline from 12 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Political observers say that the improved vote share for the Congress-Left Front alliance should serve as a caution to the BJP as it is better than the marginal improvement for the saffron camp below one percentage point on the same base.
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