CLIFFHANGER...

The BJP’S general secretary in charge of West Bengal, Kailash Vijayvargiya, said the party would form the government in the state. He attributed the indecisive opinion polls to the research firms’ lack of familiarity with the state, people’s fear of “voicing opinions freely” in a state with a culture of political violence, and the presence of a large number of “silent voters”.

The TMC’S Samir Chakraborty chose only to look at polls that gave an edge to his party. “TMC is getting a majority despite Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, and top BJP leaders making Bengal their base camp,” he said.

If the BJP manages to pull off a win, it will a remarkable achievement for a party that won only three of the 294 assembly seats in 2016, although it won 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2019. The party has long considered Bengal the last frontier, and a win in the state will complete its dominance of the east. If the TMC manages to hold on — whichever party wins, the margin, if the opinion polls are any indication, will be slim — it will a remarkable achievement for chief minister Mamata Banerjee, whose party was weakened by desertions, faced significant anti-incumbency, and appeared to be behind the BJP for much of the campaign.

It will also elevate her standing in any anti-bjp grouping that coalesces at the national level.

Any such grouping will also have to make space for Stalin, fighting his first assembly election as leader of the party, although he did lead it to a sweep in the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 (the Dmk-led alliance won 38 of the 39 Lok Sabha seats in the state). It also means the Dravidian movement, bereft of a leader after the deaths of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (AIADMK’S) J Jayalalithaa and the DMK’S Muthuvel Karunanidhi, gets a new icon. The AIADMK’S loss will weaken incumbent chief minister Edapaddi Palanisami, and perhaps pave the way for the return of his one-time mentor VK Sasikala into the party. The BJP was the junior partner of the AIADMK in the election; it has always been perceived as a party of Hindi-speaking North Indians in the state, and this loss will not help its cause in any way.

Both DMK and BJP dismissed the opinion polls. “We don’t rely on exit polls,” said DMK organising secretary RS Bharatiya, predicting a bigger sweep for the DMK grouping than that predicted by the polls. BJP spokesperson Narayanan Thirupathy said there was no need for anxiety and that voters would reward AIADMK and BJP for the good work done by Centre and state in controlling the pandemic.