2019 Indian general election in West Bengal

The 2019 Indian general election were held in India between April and May 2019 to constitute the 17th Lok Sabha.^[1][2]

On 12 March 2019, party president Mamata Banerjee announced the party candidates for the election.^[12] 41% of the candidates were women. Notable exclusions from the list were the party's general secretary Subrata Bakshi and Sugata Bose. Bose did not get permission from Harvard University, where he is a professor, to contest the election.^[13] Notable inclusions were Bengali actresses Mimi Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan.^[14]

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There has been a major political shift from the left to the right in the 2019 general elections in West Bengal. The Statesman says, “Making an aggressive penetration in Bengal for the first time since its inception in 1980, BJP alone has dramatically increased its vote share close to 40 percent this time. Thus, it has virtually made the CPI-M into a mere marginalised political party and at the same time the saffron party set a strong challenge before the Trinamool Congress hardly two years ahead of the Assembly elections scheduled in 2021 in the state.” This obviously is the most important impact of the general elections in the state visible in the voting pattern right across the state, irrespective of who won or lost a particular seat.^[16][17]

TMC won 3 out of 3 assembly seats in the next assembly by-elections in November 2019. Even the seat of State BJP president Dilip Ghosh which fell vacant due to Dilip Ghosh's win in Loksabha election, Kharagpur Sadar was won by TMC by a lead of 22,000 votes. TMC was trailing in that seat by 15,800 votes in 2019 general elections.^{[20][21][22][23][24]}