New Delhi:
Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress may win 32 of the 42 parliamentary seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, according to an opinion poll conducted by News Nation.
The survey shows that the Trinamool Congress will suffer a loss of two seats as compared to the 2014 Lok Sabha election results. Meanwhile, the BJP is expected to get a major gain from two seats in 2014 to nine seats this time.
The Congress, which had won four seats in 2014, will claim victory on just one seat this time while the CPI-M will struggle to open its account in the state, as per the survey.
Talking about the vote share, Trinamool's vote share will see a fall from 39 per cent in 2014 to 36 per cent this time. Meanwhile, BJP's vote share is likely to enjoy a considerable jump from 17 per cent in 2014 to 26 per cent in the upcoming general elections.
The Congress has called off seat-sharing talks with the CPI(M)-led Left Front for Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal – a new addition to the list of states where the Congress failed to clinch a seat-sharing deal to take on the BJP.
A section of the Congress leadership felt insulted over the Left Front unilaterally announcing its list when the talks were on between both the parties, party sources said.
Meanwhile, the top leadership of the BJP, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah, is no mood to leave any stone unturned to turn the tide in the state and this has been evident from the party's aggressive poll campaigning in the last one month.
The BJP is trying to make inroads into Trinamool's bastion state (West Bengal) which has 42 Lok Sabha seats. In 2014, the Trinamool Congress won 34 seats, the Congress four, while the BJP and CPI(M) bagged two seats each in the state.
Targeting 23 out of the 42 constituencies in the state, the saffron party is hoping to overcome its deficit in the number of seats from states of North India, where it has reached a saturation point.
Lok Sabha elections will be held in West Bengal in seven phases from April 11 to May 19.
