Bengal second round Left-Cong's best bet

If there is one part of West Bengal where the arithmetic of the Left-Congress alliance makes more sense than in any other, it is in the region that will poll in the second phase on Sunday. Voting patterns of the last two elections, the assembly polls of 2011 and the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, suggest the ruling Trinamool Congress could really find the going tough here.

Of these 56 seats, largely in the northern part of the state, the Trinamool won 18 in 2011, its then ally the Congress won an equal number and the Left 15. The three hill seats in Darjeeling district went to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and independents won the remaining two. The TMC-Congress alliance's combined vote share of 40.6% at the time was only slightly higher than the Left's 39.3% while the BJP had a marginal presence. Shift the Congress out of the alliance with TMC and into an alliance with the Left and this would seem to make it a very uneven contest, 57.9% versus 22%.

However, the situation was completely different in 2014.With the TMC, Congress, Left and BJP all fighting on their own, it became a quadrangular contest. The TMC led in 23 assembly segments and each of the other three in 11 segments. The vote shares also reveal the four-cornered nature of the contest. The TMC had the largest chunk of 29.9% and the Congress the smallest of 15.9%.Again, the Left and Congress tally put together was 42.4%, way over the TMC's share.

In fact, if the Left and Congress tallies were added in each seat, the outcome would have been 32 leads to this alliance, 16 to TMC and eight to BJP. Little wonder then that the seeds of the Left-Congress alliance were sown in this part of the state and that it has come to be known as the `Siliguri model'.

One unknown variable in this mix is what will happen to the BJP vote of 2014. If the saffron party is able to hold on to its vote share, the arithmetic seems weighed heavily in favour of the `jote'. If the BJP's vote share comes down from the levels reached during a Modi wave and settles somewhere between the 2014 and 2011 levels, where would the rest shift? If the rest go towards the Left towards the Left-Congress combine or get split equally between the TMC and this alliance, the opposition alliance would still have a decisive edge. Only if the TMC can attract a majority of BJP voters from 2014 can it really bridge the gap significantly.

Elections, of course, aren't determined solely or even primarily by arithmetic and voting patterns do not remain static. On the other hand, when the arithmetic seems so compelling, it would be foolish to disregard it totally.