TMC Set To Retain Power In West Bengal : Opinion Poll

Kolkata: Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) government will retain power in the state with a simple majority, according to an opinion poll’s result revealed on Tuesday.

The poll result stated that TMC will win 178 seats and get an increased vote share compared to 2011 assembly elections. The alliance between Indian National Congress (INC) and the Left Front will be the prime challenger to TMC and are expected to win around 110 seats in the 295-member state assembly, as per the ABP News – Nielsen Opinion Poll. It also stated that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will not emerge as a big player in West Bengal and will receive a five per cent vote share and will win just one seat. The opinion poll was conducted in 118 constituencies with 14,450 respondents from March 8 to March 20. There is not much difference between TMC and Left-Congress alliance in terms of vote share. While the former will get around 45 percent votes, much higher than the 39 per cent it got in 2011, the latter would get around 44 per cent votes. 

The poll further stated that 58 per cent of the respondents have found the performance of Banerjee as good or very good while 16 per cent rated it as poor or very poor. 

The survey also claimed that 29 per cent respondents had found the performance of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre as good or very good while 42 per cent found it to be average. However, 23 per cent respondents found the Centre's performance as poor or very poor.

Perhaps, the part of the result which made Banerjee the happiest was the part when she was named as the most popular leader in the state followed by CPI(M) veteran Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.