Calcutta: The Trinamool Congress will win at least 226 of the 294 seats in West Bengal assembly, prime minister Mamata Banerjee said Thursday, a day after voting ended, and most exit polls predicted a lead for Bharatiya Janata Party in state elections.
Mamata also alleged that the BJP had made pollsters predict the election results in favor of the saffron party to demoralize TMC workers.
“We will cross 226 seats in 2026. We may even cross the 230 seat mark. I have full faith in the people of West Bengal,” the chief minister said, thanking voters for turning out in large numbers “despite heat and intimidation”.
The TMC chief had said before the assembly elections that her party would win at least 226 seats.
Although exit polls aired after the final phase of voting on Wednesday predicted that the TMC might fall short of half of the 148 seats and lose the race to the BJP, Mamata posted a video message on X on Thursday, reiterating her prediction about her party’s performance in the election.
“What was shown on TV channels was circulated from the BJP office at 1.08 pm (Wednesday). Money was paid to ensure its telecast. I have specific information. They are insisting that this should be done,” Mamata alleged, adding that the exit polls were part of a “bigger conspiracy” to change the perception of votes and announce results before counting.
Her video message was apparently an attempt to boost the morale of TMC workers as top BJP leaders – from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to the saffron party’s state chief Samik Bhattacharya and its de facto prime ministerial candidate Suvendu Adhikari – claimed that the people of Bengal had already handed over a mandate to the people of the West.
Mamata’s heir apparent and TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee had claimed that the BJP would win less than 50 seats.
He repeated the claim on Wednesday as well, when 142 electoral units of the state went to the polls in the second and last phase of voting.
The first phase of voting on April 23 included 152 electoral units.
“Those who tried to subjugate Bengal have been subjugated by voting,” Mamata said on Thursday, expressing gratitude to TMC workers who, she claimed, “fought relentlessly and endured attacks”.
The TMC on Wednesday accused the central paramilitary forces deployed in the state by the Election Commission of acting as a ‘private army’ of the BJP. Mamata herself claimed that CPM polling agents were intimidated by central paramilitary personnel. She said the atrocities by the central forces were unprecedented. She also said that what was happening was not a free and fair election at all. Abhishek, too, echoed her and mentioned the death of an elderly man, allegedly after being pushed by paramilitary personnel, at a polling station in Howrah.
The CPM has accused the EC of working to ensure the BJP’s advantage in the assembly elections. The party also alleged that the BJP-led government at the Center deployed several agencies, such as the Enforcement Directorate, the Income Tax department, the Central Bureau of Investigation and even the National Investigation Agency, to harass its leaders and workers across the state ahead of the elections.
