Didi to face strongest opposition, the most powerful since 1967

HT, 18 May 2016, Kolkata: If the exit polls come true, one thing is sure — chief minister Mamata Banerjee will have a very strong opposition to tackle in her second innings. The opposition will be far stronger than any government has faced since 1967. In that year, the Congress ended up as the largest opposition party with 127 seats in a House of 280.

And this, precisely, will be a challenge that, many feel, will be a greater one for Mamata than winning this election — which has been the biggest test she has faced in her political career spanning over more than four decades.

The exit polls have predicted 160-170 seats for Trinamool and 120-130 for the opposition, and if it works out that way it may trigger seismic movements among many a legislator — a situation least desirable for the Trinamool supremo. Also, according to the exit polls, a mere 2% vote share will separate the winner from the loser. Trinamool is expected to get 44% of the votes, with the Congress-Left alliance bagging 42%.

Mamata’s gamble of keeping the rural electorate happy seems to have paid off well, if one goes by the exit polls. The BJP, too, might have helped Mamata. Though its vote share is predicted to drop from the high of 16.8% in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls to a modest 7%, the BJP has, perhaps, ended up fragmenting the opposition votes, helping Trinamool, by default, in quite a few seats. Left leaders have already told Hindustan Times that they are chalking out a strategy to keep the next chief minister on the toes, assuming that the exit polls have identified the victor and the vanquished.

Some CPI(M) leaders feel that the opposition’s strength will be qualitatively strong too this time.

There is also a ray of hope for some leaders in the alliance that the exit polls may go wrong, just as it did in the last Bihar and Delhi Assembly elections.

State Congress president Adhir Choudhury seemed confident in spite of the exit polls. “The alliance is coming to power. Just wait and see. These exit polls are bunkum. It is foolish to expect people living in rural areas to speak the truth just after they have come out of the polling booths (a method adopted to conduct the surveys),” Chowdhury told HT.

CPI(M) politburo member and Lok Sabha MP Mohammad Salim seemed to agree. “How can you think that a voter who is under a terror shadow will come out of the booth and hosestly say whom he or she has voted for?”

Om Prakash Mishra, a senior state Congress leader and the original proponent of the alliance idea, said, “ABP Nielsen had predicted a BJP victory both in Delhi and Bihar… The BJP won just 58 seats in Bihar, half of what they predicted… now it’s over to West Bengal!”

Bangladeshi held with gold Kolkata: A Bangladeshi national was held with gold worth over Rs 36 lakh at the city airport here, an official said on Tuesday. Acting on intelligence inputs, officers of the Air Intelligence Unit intercepted Abdul Qayum, 33, upon his arrival from Kuala Lumpur late Monday night.