New Delhi, April 24 (IANS) A large voter turnout, being attributed to the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters’ roll, acute polarisation on religious lines, anti-incumbency factor, and conversely, overwhelming mandate favouring West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress — are among reports coming after the first phase of state election held on Thursday.

The ruling Trinamool Congress is tied in a fierce battle primarily with the principal Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state.

Thus, the loud debate on a record turnout in this round, where a huge 91.78 per cent of voters participated.

Women participation scored over men with 92.69 to 90.92 per cent, respectively; and 56.79 per cent among the third gender came out to vote.

In numbers, the total turnout translates into 3.6 crore, where 1.76 crore were women, and 1.84 men, with 465 representing the third gender.

“This is like 80 voters out of 100 turning out for polling and the same number among 90 exercising their franchise,” said senior journalist and political analyst Suvashis Maitra.

“The first round of election took place in 152 seats, where the BJP had won 59 seats in 2021. Even if the party takes that tally to 80 among these, it will need 68 more seats to win from the 142 that goes to poll in the next round. In 2021, the BJP managed 18 seats in these areas, with a strike rate of around 13 per cent,” he said, analysing the current political scenario.

The task may look onerous on its own, but in the backdrop of the 2006 election, when the Trinamool Congress was being considered close to assuming power, but could not; and considering the 2021 result that favoured the party, it may not be dismissed as impossible.

Taking all 294 seats in West Bengal Assembly, Mamata Banerjee’s party collected 30 seats in the first instance with a vote share of 26.64 per cent. It won the subsequent election with 184 seats, while the mandate increased to 38.93 per cent in their favour.

Thus, the gain was of a massive 154 seats, while the percentage jumped by 12.29 points.

For the BJP, overall, the party would need to add 71 seats — or 78, considering its current strength in the state Assembly — to its 2021 kitty for a simple majority.

However, the outcome of the first phase of the 2026 election would be significant for the party since its strength lies in the north of the state, a strong polarisation in the east, in the districts bordering Bangladesh, and the tribal belt to the west and southwest, where again it holds sway.

Economist Prasenjit Bose, a Congress leader who is bitterly opposed to the poll body on its SIR exercise, asserted the massive voter turnout should not be counted a “vote for change”, as being claimed by the BJP.

“We should remember that in 2021 Assembly election, total polling was 5.99 crore out of 7.3-crore total electors, polling rate being 82 per cent. In 2024 Lok Sabha election, total polling was slightly above 6 crore out of 7.6-crore total electors, polling rate being 79 per cent,” he said, referring to his recent Facebook post.

Like Maitra, he added this year’s turnout was due to “large scale SIR deletions”, where total number of West Bengal’s electors have reduced to 6.8 crore.

This, he pointed out, is less than the total number of voters in the 2021 Assembly election.

Bose contended that with the second phase of polling scheduled for April 29, even if the same number of electors, which is around 6 crore, finally exercise their franchise in the current Assembly election, the polling rate would cross 88 per cent.

Referring to reports of large number of migrants who returned home to vote, Bose opined it as a likely because of the SIR exercise, which led to more than 91 lakh voter deletions, of which 27 lakh were struck off “because of so-called ‘logical discrepancy'”.

Expanding on this, senior journalist Biswajit Bhattacharya said that there was an apprehension among several migrants of losing their franchise if they did not vote.

“I’ve heard of many such returnees having carefully stored their voter’s slip along with elector’s identity cards to prove participation,” he claimed, stressing another reason to the record turnout.

–IANS

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