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The 2021 West Bengal Election Sentimeter

March 23, 2021 07:52 IST

Will the Trinamool Congress perform as per the predictions of the exit polls?

Will the Bharatiya Janata Party with its electioneering machinery, emerge as triumphant?

Come May 2, the date of the voting results, and we all know who will come victorious.

Elections to the 294-member Bengal assembly will be held in eight phases from March 27 to April 29.

IMAGE: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee takes part in a rally during 'Nandigram Diwas' in Kolkata. Photograph: Ashok Bhaumik/PTI Photo

The Bengal election mainly will be fought between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

However, to make things more interesting the Left and the Congress have joined hands with newly-formed Indian Secular Front.

In the parliamentary election in 2019 the BJP surprised the state and won 18 seats, securing 40 per cent of the votes in the process.

In 2016, the Trinamool Congress has a solid two-thirds majority having bagged a total of 211 seats while , the Left-Congress alliance captured 74 seats.

The BJP which won only three seats in the last assembly election is looking confident to make inroads is Mamata’s den.

 

Rediff Labs analysed the 2016 assembly election results to develop a Sentiment Meter for the 2021 battle in West Bengal.

A mathematical model is used to calculate how seat distribution will be altered as sentiment/percentage of votes towards a contesting political party changes.

Based on the change, each constituency is marked with the winning party.

A swing represents that the victory margin is close to the runner-up party.

Move the pointer on the Sentiment Meter (depending on who you think will get more votes) towards the political parties to see how the outcome is likely to change.

THE REDIFF LABS