For a berth in the 17th Lok Sabha, the contest is between Manas Bhuniya of the Trinamul and Dilip Ghosh of the BJP. The Midnapore seat, a Left bastion since 1980, fell in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The Left got 11.94 per cent of the polled votes, around 10 percentage point less than the BJP. “Many people in the party think that our revival would be faster if the BJP surge continues. The apparent surge in the BJP support base, however, alone cannot script Ghosh’s victory as the Trinamul has developed a robust organisational structure.

Source: The Telegraph May 10, 2019 00:11 UTC