An exit poll, conducted by popular Bengali news channel ABP-Nielson, has predicted Mamata Banerjee’s return to power in Bengal.
An exit poll, conducted by popular Bengali news channel ABP-Nielson, has predicted Mamata Banerjee’s return to power in Bengal. In fact, all exit poll surveys aired on Monday evening predicted the same result. The six-phase month-long Assembly election ended on May 5. However, due to Election Commission’s guidelines, no exit poll was aired till the completion of the Assembly elections in other states.
According to ABP Ananda-Nielsen exit poll survey, which was aired after 6 pm on Monday, the Trinamul Congress is all set to win 163 and the Left-Congress alliance 126 seats in the 294-member Assembly. Cutting a sorry figure, the BJP will have to content itself with just one seat, while the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha is likely to get three seats. One seat may go to an independent candidate. In other words, the Trinamul Congress will comfortably cross the magic figure of 148. There was, however, a twist in the ABP-Nielson’s poll. It has asked the viewers to take into consideration an important factor: there are 25 marginal seats where the victory margin will be less than 5,000 votes. The exit poll wants the people to consider the possibility that the Trinamul Congress may eventually get 25 seats less which will bring down its tally to 138 seats. On the other hand, if the Left-Congress coalition wins 25 seats more then it will win 151, crossing the magic figure. Thus the ABP-Nielson exit poll survey hints that there is an extremely distant possibility that the Left-Congress may come to power with a wafer thin margin.
According to this survey, the vote share of the TMC will be 44 per cent, Left-Congress combine 42 per cent, BJP 7 per cent and others 7 per cent. A cursory glance at the Assembly-wise analysis of the 2014 Lok Sabha poll results show that the TMC was ahead in 179, the Left-Congress combine in 97 and the BJP in 18 seats. In 2014 riding the Modi wave, BJP’s vote share in Bengal had jumped to 17 per cent which in 2016 Assembly poll (according to the exit poll) is likely to come down to 7 per cent. In 2011, the Trinamul Congress and the Congress coalition had won 226 seats in which the TMC alone had won 184 seats.
