Winning ways

Neglecting Covid for polls has been costly for BJP

The results of the Assembly elections held over the past 45 days or so have broadly been on the lines suggested by the exit polls with the standout exception of West Bengal, where the “hung assembly” narrative has been proven comprehensively wrong by the Trinamool Congress’ emphatic victory. When compared with the results of the 2016 Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made remarkable gains. It has won close to 75 seats from just three in 2016 and got about 38 per cent of the vote. But the BJP was fighting to win, not come in second, so