What’s behind Bengal’s record voter turnout ?
UNI ANALYSIS
Jayanta Roy Chowdhury
Kolkata, April 24 (UNI) West Bengal's unprecedented 92.88 per cent turnout in the first phase of polling seems less a straightforward indicator of political enthusiasm than the outcome of a confluence of structural and behavioural factors, despite claims by both TMC and BJP that the high voting figure meant people were rallying towards them.
While the BJP has gone on record claiming it was a vote "to oust the Mamata Banerjee government", the TMC Supremo tweeted on Friday "I saw people turn out with clear intent, determined, united and ready to defend Bengal."
However, analysis of the numbers seems to indicate the story may have other extraneous factors.
First, the headline number is partly a statistical artefact. The deletion of roughly 9.4 per cent of registered voters, owing to duplication, migration and a substantial pool of nearly 3.4 million individuals under adjudication, has effectively compressed the electoral base. A smaller denominator inevitably inflates turnout percentages, making participation appear more robust than it might otherwise have been.
Second, there is evidence of what might be termed a "revenge vote." In constituencies where families found members excluded from electoral rolls, voting became an act of assertion, an attempt to reclaim agency within a system perceived as exclusionary.
"The two narratives – TMC's that this is a vote for Bengali pride and BJP's that it's a vote against the ruling government doesn't cut much ice," former Rajya sabha MP Jawhar Sircar told UNI.
Pointing out that some 9.1 million people's names were struck off by the Election Commission of India, the former Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal, said, "From my experience of conducting elections, I would tend to believe that half of those numbers were absent, migrated or dead. While the remaining are live, genuine voters."
Sircar, who was earlier a West Bengal cadre IAS, also pointed out that some 3.4 million have "appealed against their exclusion and have submitted documents proving they are genuine resident Indians and not Bangladeshis who have fled across the border. Another 1.5 million would be poor, hapless migratory workers who aren't even aware their names have been struck off."
Taken together, these dynamics complicate any singular political reading of the turnout. The high participation rate cannot be cleanly interpreted as a wave in favour of, or against, any one party. Rather, it reflects a layered electoral moment shaped as much by administrative recalibration as by voter emotion and political intent.
Some 57 per cent of the 9.1 million names removed from the Bengal voter list after the Special Intensive Revision drive are from 10 districts bordering Bangladesh – six of which went to the polls on Thursday. All these districts recorded high voter turnout. Cooch Behar recorded the highest at 96.04 per cent, North Dinajpur recorded 94.16 per cent turnout and South Dinajpur 95.44 per cent.
The two big districts with maximum voter deletions, Malda and Murshidabad, witnessed 94.46 and 93.61 per cent polling respectively.
"We know that migrant workers have come back in larger than usual numbers to vote this time round and these districts account for a significant seasonal out-migration. Anecdotal evidence suggests that these voters appear spooked by the SIR and fear that if they do not vote this time round, their names may be struck off next time," Ranabir Samaddar, former head of the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, told UNI.
Analysts, however, also believe some voting enthusiasm may be because of a degree of anti-incumbency or pro-incumbency sentiments. "The party narratives would appear to have mobilised sections of the electorate. For some voters, the ballot was less about affirmation and more about signalling dissatisfaction with perceived assaults on local pride or dissatisfaction with governance," admitted Prof Samaddar.
For many voters, especially from among the Bengali middle class, TMC's stress of "Bangaliana" and Bengali pride as against dominance by outsiders taps into a deeper unease, that their language, culture and demographic dominance could erode amid migration and external political influence.
Many others, straw polls show, feel that the lack of industrialisation and Bengal's case study as a net exporter of labour, are affecting growth and a change in the power structure could bring benefits and central largesse to the state. UNI JRC SSP SAS
Key Insights
- This topic is currently trending
- Experts are closely monitoring developments
- It may impact future decisions
