In this episode of The Lead, get to know who are the personalities of the West Bengal polls, how the alliances stack up and will Mamata Banerjee's charisma work for the third time.
West Bengal, once a Left stronghold, saw the rise of another regional leader Mamata Banerjee, whose TMC has ruled the state for a decade. The state is set for a repeat of history: Will Mamata retain power or the BJP will trounce didi, the way she relegated the Left to the fringes in the state.
Hi, this is Ahmed Shariff and welcome to The Lead by DH Radio.
West Bengal has 294 Assembly seats including 68 SC and 16 ST seats. 82.66 % of the voters had cast their vote in the previous election, that is in 2016, Mamata Banerjee-led TMC came to power winning 200 seats.
A state defined by a highly electrifying election campaign will this time a three-corner fight among the TMC, Congress-Left alliance and the BJP
Ahmed: Today, we are joined by our correspondent from Kolkata Soumya Das to tell about the state and what's happening this year.
Hi, Soumya. Welcome to DH Radio.
Soumya Das: Hi.
Ahmed: Will the West Bengal elections be a bipolar contest between the BJP and the TMC, how is the situation on the ground?
Soumya: The situation here is quite unique as far as the West Bengal politics is concerned. Unique because of the rise of the BJP in West Bengal and prior to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP was considered a fringe element in the state and within a span of 2 years it has made a meteoric rise almost to the situation where it hoping to come to power in a state it has never ruled before...
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