West Bengal Assembly Elections

The Wire confuses correlation with causation, leans on speculative no SIR models, and ignores that TMC won 13 of the 20 Assembly seats that recorded the highest number of voter deletions.

The front page of the Calcutta edition of the newspaper published on 5th May dominated BJP’s Bengal victory, with a large front in saffron colour “BJP’s Bengal” with an illustration of the iconic Howrah Bridge worked into the lettering. Below it is the headline “Saffron tsunami sets aside TMC”.

The outgoing Chief Minister has refused to resign. Short on numbers, Banerjee has accused the BJP of ‘rigging’ and claimed that the TMC has won the elections ‘morally’.

Several foreign media publications covered the BJP’s thumping victory, though not without peddling propaganda about the victorious party’s ‘Hindu nationalist’ ideology, ‘Muslim minority under threat’ bogey and falsehoods about the pre-poll SIR exercise.

It is the BJP’s candidate selection and focus on real issues that propelled the party to 206 seats for its maiden triumph. BJP’s women candidates brought their own grassroots stories, carried pain and yearning to bring change that resonated with Bengali voters.

Rahul Gandhi, Sayema, Arfa Khanum Sherwani and Sanjay Singh blamed the SIR after the results. Yet the top deletion seats tell a different story, with the TMC winning 13 out of the 20.