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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Don’t be so quick to write obituaries for the Opposition. We’re still alive and kicking

Before we consign the Opposition to the political graveyard, let’s undertake a much-needed reality check.

This seems to be the season of writing obituaries for the Opposition. “The end”, “it’s all over”, “there can be no revival”—are common refrains.

The commentariat is busy drafting death certificates. The Trinamool Congress has been defeated in Bengal. Mamata Banerjee, the Opposition stalwart no longer occupies the chief minister’s chair. The Congress is supposedly leaderless and directionless. The DMK has been displaced by a new force. Narendra Modi, we are repeatedly being told, is invincible.

The BJP is unstoppable. The Opposition is finished. The hand- wringing is endless. The lamentations are incessant.

But before we consign the Opposition to the political graveyard, let’s undertake a much-needed reality check.

In Bengal, the dominant narrative is that the BJP has decisively defeated Mamata Banerjee and the All India Trinamool Congress. Yet, beneath the headline lies a far more nuanced story.

The BJP secured 45.9 per cent of the vote in Bengal; the Trinamool secured 40.6 per cent. After fifteen years in office, facing relentless political, institutional and media hostility, up against a hopelessly biased Election Commission and a brazenly one-sided media, the gap between the “winner” and “loser” is  just about five percentage points.

In absolute numbers, the BJP received 2.93 crore votes and the Trinamool 2.60 crore votes—a difference of roughly 33 lakh votes in a state of nearly ten crore people.

More significantly, if one aggregates the votes polled by the Trinamool, Congress and Left, the anti-BJP vote percentage remains higher than the BJP vote percentage. It’s crystal clear: More people voted against the BJP than for the BJP in Bengal.

Yes, under the first-past-the-post system, the BJP converted its vote share into a 200 seat tally. But the notion that Bengal has suddenly become the Modi-led BJP’s citadel is simply not borne out by the numbers. Bengal has not wholeheartedly embraced the BJP.

Instead the state has witnessed a fiercely competitive election, where with the EC batting openly for one side, the BJP edged ahead.

Also read: Amit Shah, not PM Modi, is Mamata Banerjee’s real challenger in this Bengal election

There is another extremely important fact. The difference in total votes between BJP and TMC as I mentioned above is 33 lakh. But 34 lakh voters remain under adjudication following the highly controversial SIR exercise, and could not vote in the assembly polls. The partisan conduct of the Election........

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