Mamata could play a key role in govt formation at Centre

Exit polls on Monday suggested West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) might play a key role in national politics, too, if required.

The number of seats TMC is seen bagging in Bengal, which has 42 Lok Sabha constituencies, varies from 20 to 31. These numbers are lower than the 34 seats the party should have won (extrapolating Assembly election tally), but TMC, with a lower band of 20 seats, could play a key role if the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance falls short of majority.

In the second term of the United Progressive Alliance government, TMC was the second-largest party with 19 seats. Banerjee was confident TMC would get 30 seats this time, if not significantly more, but opinion polls from March to April pegged 26-32 seats.

Banerjee has maintained her party would not have anything to do with a Narendra Modi-led government, but she is yet to clearly spell out her stand on a BJP-led one.

  Banerjee’s apathy for Modi became evident several times during her campaign in the run-up to the elections. While she kept referring to Modi as a rioter, the latter raked up the Saradha scam and went on to allege Sudipta Sen, the company’s promoter, had bought one of Banerjee’s paintings for Rs 1.8 crore. He even said Banerjee had turned Bengal into a scam hub.

Exit poll numbers showed TMC’s expected good show might have been hit by a surge in BJP’s vote share. While most channels forecast at least two seats for BJP, an increase from one in the previous general elections, they were unanimous in projecting a significant rise in the saffron party’s vote share. The numbers also reflect Modi’s intense campaigning in the state.

In the weeks leading up to the polls, it had become evident that it was going to be a Banerjee-Modi battle. With the Left taking a back seat in Bengal, political observers believe it is possible BJP would become the main Opposition party in the state. Perhaps, Banerjee had sensed that early in the day.

Curiously, just ahead of the exit poll numbers, the chief minister called for state funding of elections to keep the polls clean. It remains to be seen whether her reflection on elections in India and the media’s role had anything to do with the exit polls, which showed a gain in BJP’s popularity in Bengal.

She posted on social networking site Facebook, “There’s hardly any room for doubt that a few major cash-loaded parties have taken control of media houses and engaged them to serve their narrow political interests, trampling the ethics of democracy and people’s voice.”