Bengal registered a polling percentage of 91.78 per cent in the first phase of the Assembly election on Thursday, the highest in the state since Independence, according to a press note from the Election Commission of India.
Previously, the highest poll-participation in Bengal was 84.72 per cent (overall) in 2011 — the year Mamata Banerjee dethroned the Left Front government.
Bengal was not alone in its achievement. Tamil Nadu at 84.69 per cent also notched up its own highest turnout since Independence, breaking the previous record of 78.29 per cent in 2011.
Bengal’s process of counting votes polled seemed to be still on; at 9.55pm the ECI Net app showed 92.56 per cent voter turnout in the 152 seats across 16 districts in the state.
Only three districts – Kalimpong, Darjeeling and West Burdwan – had a turnout of less than 90 per cent, with the lowest in Kalimpong at 83 per cent.
The three districts of North Dinajpur, Malda and Murshidabad, where the highest number of voters were marked under adjudication in the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, have recorded over 93 per cent turnout each.
Election Commission data showed that Bengal during the 1950s and 1960s had a turnout of 43-47 per cent, which jumped to 55-66 per cent later. In 1977, the year the Left Front came to power, Bengal had recorded a turnout of 56.15 per cent.
Throughout the 1980s when the Left dug its roots deep in all aspects of Bengal's life the turnout hovered above 75 per cent.
The first time the 80 per cent turnout was breached was during the 1996 Assembly polls. The CPM managed to win 153 seats just above the magic figure of 148 in the 294-member Assembly that year. That was before the Trinamool Congress was born. The yet-to-be divided Congress got 82 seats with about 39 per cent of the votes.
The year of Poriborton (change) in Bengal, 2011, the turnout was 84.72 per cent, the highest since Independence. This year that might be broken overall when Bengal votes in phase 2 of the election, on April 29.
In the Assembly elections since Mamata Banerjee became Bengal’s chief minister, the turnout stood at 83.02 per cent in 2016 and 82.30 per cent in 2021.
Both the ruling Trinamool and the main opposition BJP claimed to have got the winning numbers from the 152 seats that voted on Thursday.
"Trinamool cannot lose. We have already won in the first phase. In the next phase we will smash them," chief minister Mamata Banerjee said at the Baro Bhooter Melar ground in Jadavpur constituency.
Her opponent in Bhabanipur, Suvendu Adhikari, who also contested from East Midnapore which voted on Thursday, said: "We have pocketed 125 of the 152 seats in the first phase. The Trinamool government is gone."
Among the factors behind the high turnout, Bengal went to vote with nearly 91 lakh fewer voters than the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Second, a huge number of voters, mostly migrant workers who could retain their names in the electoral rolls, returned home to vote. Many were driven by the fear that a no-show in the 2026 Assembly polls could pose the threat of disenfranchisement when a similar exercise takes place in the future.
Compared to Bengal's bloodied election history, Thursday’s vote was almost peaceful. No bullets were fired. No major complaints of booth jamming, though Trinamool lodged over 700 complaints of harassment by central forces and malfunctioning of electronic voting machines in the afternoon.
The BJP and the Congress both expressed satisfaction with the Election Commission's handling of the situation on polling day.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a rally in Nadia's Krishnagar predicted that the first phase of polling in Bengal would break all records. The other prediction he made, about BJP forming the next government in Bengal, will be tested on May 4.