Mamata Banerjee set to return to power in West Bengal, says opinion poll

New Delhi: Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress is set to return to power in West Bengal by winning 178 seats and getting an increased vote share compared to 2011 assembly elections, says an opinion poll conducted by a news channel. [caption id=“attachment_2702698” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee. PTI[/caption] Congress-Left parties’ alliance will be the prime challenger to TMC and are expected to win around 110 seats in the 295-member state assembly, the survey by ABP News-Nielsen says. It projects that BJP will not emerge as a big player in West Bengal and will receive a 5 percent vote share and will win just one seat. According to a statement issued by the Hindi news channel, the opinion poll was conducted in 118 constituencies with 14,450 respondents from 8 to 20 March. As per the statement, there is not much difference between TMC and Left-Congress alliance in terms of vote share. While the former will get around 45 percent votes, much higher than the 39 percent it got in 2011, the latter would get around 44 percent share. According to the poll, there is a degree of satisfaction with the performance of the TMC government and 58 percent of the respondents have found the performance of Banerjee as good or very good while 16 percent rated it as poor or very poor.

Banerjee is the most popular leader in the state followed by CPI(M) veteran Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the opinion poll said. The survey also claimed that 29 percent respondents had found the performance of the NDA government at the Centre as good or very good while 42 percent found it to be average. However, 23 percent respondents found the Centre’s performance as poor or very poor, the survey said.