Hs might disapprove of the TMC but why would the Ms? WB INC leaders are on record admitting that total H-M polarization is the reason why they have lost their hold across North Bengal constituencies. Adhir even admitted that he did not know how to blunt the effects of H-M polarization and keep the INC alive in North Bengal because he had never witnessed such 'communal' brand of politics before (he lost to a nobody like Yusuf Pathan on his home turf).
Was H-M polarisation the reason the INC lost to the Marxists to begin with ? Since then the INC has been on a steady downward slope such that it retained pockets of support up until the last assembly & general elections. Now that's more or less gone.
Most pollsters have noted a familiar trend worldwide with voters which is nobody likes to back a losing candidate or side for obvious reasons except the most ideologically committed voter who in any case form a minority of the electorate .
Instead of Adhir wondering the reason he lost he should be wondering how he survived all this while when the party itself was falling all around him . You're seeing much the same with the Marxists today.
M votes used to get didvided among the TMC and the left up until 2016 (when the BJP wasn't anywhere to be found). Once the BJP guys became visible they shifted to the TMC because they were aware of the the stakes involved.
That's too be expected.
How are you so sure that internal sabotage or 'people not getting their share of the spoils' is the reason why the Ms are 'voting for the BJP' across these constituencies? Can you provide me some articles/surveys etc?
None whatsoever @articles / surveys etc but the entire scenario is counter intuitive which is the reason I argued the way I did. Logically what you say ought to follow but if that's not the case , in an employment deficit state like WB , how does the local economy survive or even thrive ?
It's thru state largesse or by parasiting the state thru mafia like ventures like the railway mafia , the construction mafia , coal mafia etc which are endemic all across states around the Indo Gangetic plains. You could add certain mafias exclusive only to WB in the mix like the cattle mafia etc.
What happens when one faction corners all the loot ? Logically the other faction hops over to the opposition but given the bloody politics prevalent in WB introduced courtesy the Marxists that's not an option or in any case not a viable option unless you don't value your head on your shoulders . What's the alternative then ? Subversion , internal sabotage etc.
These constituencies have exhibited this exact pattern in 2019 LS, in 2021 Assembly polls and in 2024 LS. I am pretty sure the results won't be any different in 2026 assembly either.
If you're referring to an outsized population of the peacefuls , the only way a party like the BJP scampers home as seen in similar scenarios across the North principally is a multi cornered contest where the H minority consolidates behind the BJP & the M majority votes gets divided between the various parties putting up M candidates .
Do we see that as a factor in these constituencies you've named ?
And these are some of the most communally charged constituencies of the state we are talking about.
A railway station complex in West Bengal's Murshidabad district was set on fire on Friday evening by those protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. The protesters, thousands in number, also thrashed personnel of the Railway Police Force that were at the Beldanga railway station complex.
www.ndtv.com
A portion of a railway station complex was set on fire in West Bengal as protesters continued to block road and disrupt rail services in different parts of the state over the amended Citizenship Act, which has seen violent protests in the Northeast, particularly Assam where two people were...
www.ndtv.com
The number of Muslims slightly outnumber the Hindus in Malda, which has historically been a den of the Congress, largely because of the late Ghani Khan Choudhary
www.firstpost.com
Ms voting for the BJPwallahs to show their 'disapproval' of the TMC gormint is equivalent to the BJP gaining M votes in coastal Karmataka - neither makes sense.
How do you explain Ghani Khan Choudhary's continued survival in Malda then when the Marxists were sweeping everything around him if the Ms there were only in a slight majority as compared to the Hs ? All such contests should've been won by ABA with wafer thin margins . Was that the case ?
For starters;
Major surveys that policymakers rely on — NSS, NFHS, and PLFS — are based on unsound data collection frameworks, and systematically underestimate India’s progress and development
indianexpress.com
Gormint surveys are not sacrosanct. MoSPI and NSO are criminally underfunded and many of the surveys are conducted with outdated samples and faulty methodologies.
I never claimed they were & if we're going to see the more of the same this census would go down the same way as the previous ones. However when you suggest that constituencies bordering BD which given the porous borders there , if not now then historically , with known & documented distortions in their populations towards Ms is no longer the case now , I find that hard to accept.
www.newsclick.in
www.thehindu.com
