00:00joining me now sanjay kumar sophologist and election analyst professor maidul islam political
00:05scientist joins me from kolkata sandeep shastri election analyst and vice president neeti
00:10university appreciate all three of you joining us to look at those west bengal numbers very closely
00:16sanjay kumar high voter turnout could this be bad or good news for the incumbent
00:25uh rajdeep very difficult to say whether it is a good news or a bad news for incumbent because we
00:31have seen in the past turnouts have gone up government have got reelected and governments
00:35have also got defeated just to cite the data if you look at all the state assembly elections held
00:41since 1952 till date i managed to collect the data for about almost about 370 380 assembly
00:48constitution assembly election and we have figured out that when the turnout goes up half of the time
00:53the governments got reelected and half of the times nearly half of the time government got defeated
00:58what do you make out of it very difficult to say what does this high in the high turnout indicate
01:05very difficult to predict what this high voter turnout indicates rahul uh varma are you willing
01:11to take the plunge and say that this could be signs of anti-incumbency in west bengal or do you
01:17believe the sr effect needs to be first gauged before we know what impact it's actually had
01:22so uh yes i think uh largely it's an sir effect two kinds of sir effect one is cleaning up
01:30of
01:30electoral rolls getting the denominator reduced and so the numbers uh on the numerator side will give
01:36you a bigger uh sort of percentage second i think at least in bengal it is a sir induced fear
01:43as well
01:43that if i do not go out and vote this time my name not is not going to be there
01:49so there is much more
01:50people coming back and definitely voting third i think bengal because it's a highly polarized society
01:57and with every election the level of polarization is going up and so you cannot afford to have an
02:04opponent in power and so you just want to make sure that for your own party you have to be
02:10there
02:10these three things are what basically is about high turnout i don't think it is related to
02:17anti-incumbency or pro-incumbency sentiment maidul islam your first reactions particularly in the
02:25backdrop of now more and more polls showing the bjp could be ahead in west bengal do you believe that
02:31the polarization has now reached a a saturation point possibly and perhaps is now turning uh marginal
02:39seats into victories we'll of course discuss that on polling day but are you what explains this high
02:44voter turnout complete polarization well i agree with rahul before and i also agree with
02:51professor subject bar i think there's no direct uh relationship between uh turnouts and uh polling
02:58outcomes uh the most important thing regarding the turnout figures what we have to concentrate is on
03:04the woman voter turnout now in the first phase uh there was a two percent difference between the
03:10woman voter turnout with the men's voter turnout so women are actually turning out more uh in the first
03:16phase and that's the same uh thing is continuing up till now in the second phase still now the data
03:22is
03:22showing that it's one percent more in in favor of women now if that is happening then of course there
03:29is
03:29advantage momota because women are the core voters where the cash transfer schemes have been increased
03:35over the years particularly in the last five years the 500 to 1000 and 1000 to 1500 and then there's
03:42also new schemes for the uh the new uh the youth urban uh youth or the unemployed youth i guess
03:48those
03:49social and the and the delivery of different other uh social welfare schemes and also the bengal has a
03:54history of uh you know these long regimes uh with since 1972 it has always been a two-third majority
04:02whoever wins wins is big right and then another trend is that whoever wins the loksawasi loksawai election
04:08they win the next assembly elections uh now in the last two years bjp the bjp of course lost the
04:15uh loksawai elections in 2024 and there has been not very much anti-government uh movement because in bengal
04:23generally overnight it doesn't change uh government you you get a signal for let's say five years ten
04:31years it has happened before the transition phase from the 67 to 77 uh and it has changed from 2008
04:37to
04:3711 if you will speak for single nandigram i think that so we cannot completely ignore this entire state's
04:44history and long-term political trends and the long-term party systems how it how it occurs so so i
04:51guess at the
04:51booth level organization what i find in my field work of course i've basically uh you know gone to
04:57different places in south bengal is the booth level organization the bjp is really really weak
05:02uh whereas you have booth level organizations of the uh tridamul and quite interestingly the cpm still
05:09has certain booth level organizations now if the sir is a factor and the migrant labor is also coming
05:15out uh coming back just to turn turn out because they fear that their vote voters were vote names
05:20will be deleted then all parties are actually uh mobilizing their cadres or their supporters so the
05:27cpm is also mobilizing congress is mobilizing the isf is mobilizing the bjp through the moon
05:32call everyone is mobilizing because they think that their voters their supporters even if they don't win
05:37their supporters and their voters just get turn out so that their name should be there in the next summary
05:43division okay so sir of course remains the remains a major x factor uh sandeep shastri do you believe
05:51that this voter turnout suggests that uh mamta banerji is in serious trouble uh and and possibly after 15
05:59years anti-incumbency has set in uh rajdeep i would not uh move to making that conclusion just on this
06:09principle i would go with my other three panelists but i would make the three points in a different
06:16order i think firstly increased voter turnout for me is a byproduct of a environment perceived to be
06:26more safe and more secure uh i don't know if it has to do with the central forces around but
06:33generally the perception that there is a better law and order and a better security and a better
06:37safety situation around the time of the elections has led to a greater voter turnout secondly i think
06:45the hyper polarization that this election has seen has got the committed voters of both the bjp and the tmc
06:54to come out in large numbers and vote and i think a critical deciding factor is who has been between
07:02the two more successful in doing that and third of course i would also see the sir role what rahul
07:10just
07:11now said the factor of the corrections in the voters list and the fear factor that if i do not
07:17go and vote
07:18this time next time my name may be out of the list so i think it's a combination for me
07:23of all these
07:24three factors which account for a higher voter turnout is it going to lead to uh change or is it
07:32going to
07:32lead to continuity for me the the the main factor would be this hyper polarization who has been able to
07:41get their voters in larger numbers to the booth is it the tmc is it the bjp so this hyper
07:48polarization
07:49uh if you can explain that to us sanjay kumar is there any state quite like bengal which is as
07:55hyper polarized remember the bjp uh till 10 years ago was a marginal party they seem to have succeeded
08:02in continuously growing in west bengal the tmc took a large chunk of the left vote which was dominant for
08:0830 years hyper polarization is that the explanation for this remarkably high voter turnout or anger or
08:16fatigue what is it yeah uh i would not prefer to use the word uh you know polarization hyper
08:27polarization i would say intense mobilization instead of polarization it is an intense mobilization
08:32by the cadres party cadres of both the parties and also the two parties which may not be doing
08:38very well i am referring to the congress and the trinambul and and the left parties so i missed out
08:44in
08:44the first instance that we should also not forget that better law and order situation the presence
08:50of security forces that has also contributed to a very high turnout because people came out to vote
08:56they were not worried about you know violence being taking place on the polling day but i think
09:01high intense mobilization that's one certainly a big factor which has contributed to
09:08the increase in the increase in voter turnout is it a level playing field though rahul varma you
09:13believe the the tmc is claiming it's not a level playing field the bjp is saying it's completely free
09:19and fair is that also creating these very very competitive narratives in this hyper polarized atmosphere
09:26well west bengal has never seen uniform contest the reason why i'm saying this because in think of it
09:35between 1977 and 2026 50 years power has changed hands in west bengal only once that was 2011 you don't
09:46have so bengal produces hegemonic parties dominant parties once you have that kind of party then you
09:53are never going to have uh you know uniform contest the something that you asked before this which is
10:01that how is bengal different bengal is also different because in no other state you see
10:07this kind of security mobilization and you also don't see this kind of election related violence
10:13right this is not happening just in 2026 even in the past during left uh years during uh like when
10:20tmc
10:21came to power so power in bengal has not changed in silent ways as it had happened happens in other
10:29parts right that's what is so the word that i think sandeepji was using about hyper polarization
10:34it's not just that you know it's a hindu muslim polarization or we are ideologically different
10:39it's politics which is marked with violence and and because of that it creates these kind of things in
10:46the society a final word because long back sorry razdeep because in bengal parties have penetrated
10:54first left now tmc has penetrated in society they basically in like interfere in small matters of
11:03societal relations what dwai bhai and bhattacharya has called as party society so because bengal is
11:09peculiar we are seeing peculiar phenomenas in there before you leave us mr islam i want to
11:16ask you a one quick answer the mahila vote is that going to be critical in all of this voter
11:22turnout as you said marginally higher among women is that going to be decisive if there's any factor
11:27that's decisive in bengal it will be have the women stuck with mamata banerji or have they shifted
11:32particularly hindu women shifted to the bjp i i think it's very very uh difficult to say now but
11:41whatever fieldwork ethnographic fieldwork of course ethnography has its own limitations i still find
11:46that the hindu woman uh voters are still very strongly behind uh mamata and i think this election
11:54could probably be again an election of three m's uh muslims matuas and mamata and uh so i think that
12:03that is going to be uh we have to see that uh even in the mathua belt uh the bjp
12:09is having a very
12:11difficult uh terrain because the mathuas are not happy their names were also deleted they were core
12:17voters of the bjp since 2019 loksaba elections and uh there is a huge kind of resentment uh so i
12:27i think
12:27it's we have to beat up be a bit cautious to just to project uh a kind of result for
12:34bengal now it's a
12:35very politically intense state i completely agree with from sanjia kumar that this is political mobilization
12:41intense mobilization in an intensive revision kind of a modern space and of course it's also a sad thing that
12:49uh you know 35 lakh voters have gone to the tribunal and the the latest strike rate of inclusions is
12:5699
12:56percent i am quite worried that how this election will be challenged or not later in later on just
13:02from the pure point of law in terms of margin the kind of deletions and right and most of them
13:07are
13:07genuine voters so uh so i i think it's we have to see till wait till 4th of may uh
13:14to do more research
13:15to to to get a deep deep dive into the data that will come out i'm going to leave it
13:21there uh for
13:22you on west bengal appreciate your joining us professor islam
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