The campaign of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal has generated more heat than the scorching summer the state is experiencing. However, the voter turnout in the first two phases showed that the average voter is less enthusiastic about going to the booths on polling day than in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Given that elections in West Bengal are mostly held during the summer, the weather is not the sole reason for the low turnout in the state.
Although one has to wait for all seven phases to make a proper assessment, especially because 36 more seats (85 per cent of the seats) are going to polls in the subsequent five phases, two factors may explain the turnout when compared to the previous two Lok Sabha elections that were seen as Modi wave elections. First, compared to the Trinamool, the BJP’s booth-level organisation is weak. This was also noted in the 2021 assembly elections, the municipality polls in 2022 and the panchayat elections in 2023. The BJPs organisational strength has declined in West Bengal after the party’s loss in the 2021 assembly polls. This may affect the BJP since the booth-level worker ensures the party’s voters turn up at the polling stations. Several grassroots organisers from the Hindi heartland who were essentially part of the broader Sangh Parivar came down to West Bengal to assist the BJP’s Bengal unit in the 2019 and 2021 elections. They do not seem to be present in large numbers in the current polls. They might be primarily busy working in the Hindi heartland states like UP and Bihar, where elections are also being held in seven phases.
The absence of significant sections of the migrant workers is another cause for low turnout. The post-Covid situation has created job-related uncertainties for the state’s employable population. Many have migrated to other states. Given the precarious nature of their employment, most migrant labourers did not take the risk of coming back on polling day. Travel is also not easy on their pockets.
The absence of migrant labour from polling is likely to hurt the TMC, given that a number of government-sponsored schemes cover low-income families in West Bengal. A sizeable section of the families of the migrant labourers are beneficiaries of the state government’s welfare projects.
The BJP’s top leadership has reportedly set a target of 25-35 seats in West Bengal. This ambitious goal is not just a number but also the party’s tactic to rejuvenate its workers. Matching even the last Lok Sabha figures of 18 seats could be challenging, given that the BJP’s vote share came down by over 2 per cent in the 2021 assembly elections compared to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP was only leading in 12 Lok Sabha seats if one calculates the 2021 assembly election results. Since then, the BJP candidates have come third after Trinamool and the Left-Congress candidates in several by-polls and municipality polls. The Left appears to have improved its organisational strength in some areas thanks to a new generation of leaders.
The BJPs spectacular rise, between the 2011 and 2021 assembly elections, was due to four reasons. First, the rapid decline of the cadre-based Left parties was filled up by another cadre-based party. The BJP, which got only 6.14 per cent votes in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and 4.06 per cent votes in the 2011 assembly elections, jumped to 17.02 per cent and 40.64 per cent in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, respectively. It was a time of continuing electoral decline of the Left.
The Left did manage to put up a fight against the ruling Trinamool Congress in the 2016 assembly polls by making a seat arrangement with the Congress, and the BJP vote share came down from 17.02 per cent in the 2014 Lok Sabha election to a little over 10 per cent in 2016 assembly elections. However, after the 2016 assembly polls, the Left and Congress could not resist the BJP becoming the state’s principal opposition party. Second, the rise of the BJP in West Bengal, particularly after the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, was partly due to the impact of the BJP-led central government’s power and financial resources to influence the voters. Third, the slow but steady rise of the RSS organisation after 2011 helped the BJP expand its wings in West Bengal.
Finally, a section of the Trinamool leadership has flocked to the BJP in the last few years. This has made the BJP’s West Bengal unit a curious mix of Congress gharana politicians and the old Hindu Mahasabha and RSS-trained cadres. This ensemble has created conditions for intra-party rivalry within the state BJP.
Generally, the BJP gets more votes in the Lok Sabha than the Vidhan Sabha elections in West Bengal — a trend for over three decades since the 1991 elections held at the height of the Ram Mandir movement. The BJP leadership is primarily banking on Sandeshkhali incidents and the corruption charges against the Trinamool. In the last few elections, particularly after 2014, corruption allegations like Ponzi schemes and teacher recruitment scams did not cut much ice with the voters in Bengal.
Trinamool has capitalised on welfare schemes, Mamata Banerjee’s charisma and a crafty campaign narrative of celebrating Bengali identity against BJP. West Bengal also has a history of voting against national parties. How will the average voter react to the opposition campaign against Trinamool in 2024?
The writer is a political scientist at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. Views are personal
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