BJP may win 8, Trinamool to shine in WB: ABP-Nielsen

Kolkata, March 30 (IANS) The BJP could come up with its best ever showing by winning eight Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal but that will not be enough to stop the Trinamool Congress from finishing with 31 seats, three less than last time, according to an opinion poll.

The ABP News-Nielsen's latest Opinion Poll has predicted that the Left Front, which ruled the state for a record 34 years from 1977 to 2011, may draw a blank while the Congress could keep itself afloat with three seats.

The Left Front led by the CPI-M bagged two seats last time and the Congress four.

The BJP, which won two seats in 2014, could do well in north Bengal as also in the southern district of North 24 Parganas, says the opinion poll, which predicts the BJP's vote share to jump from 17.06 per cent from 2014 to 26 per cent now.

The Trinamool, which won 34 seats and got 39.4 per cent of votes in 2014, could end up with 37 per cent of the votes this time around.

The seats the BJP could win are Alipurduar, Raiganj, Darjeeling, Balurghat, Krishnanagar, Bongaon, Asansol and Barrackpur. It won Darjeeling and Asansol five years back.

The opinion poll predicted that the Congress, which is fighting alone after breakdown of its seat adjustment talks with the Left Front, could win Malda South, Jangipur and Baharampur.

The Trinamool was likely to make a clean sweep of the region in and around Kolkata by claiming all the seven seats - Kolkata North, Kolkata South, Jadavpur, Howrah, Dum Dum, Diamond Harobur and Uluberia.

It could also sweep the former Maoist affected western districts