Analysis: Can A Splintered Opposition Still Get Muslim Vote Against BJP In Bengal?

No opposition arithmetic in West Bengal is complete without the Muslim vote. The community was 27 per cent of the population in the last census and is now widely taken to be close to 30 per cent. For three decades, that vote decided who sat in the Writers' Building and who waited outside it. When the Congress ruled, Muslims could still look at the Left. When the Left ruled, they could look at Mamata Banerjee. When the Trinamool Congress ruled, they could look at the Congress and the Left. The door was never fully shut. The Bharatiya Janata Party in power changes that door. Muslims in Bengal, as elsewhere, do not vote for the BJP in any number that can change a seat. That is the one fixed point on an otherwise broken map.