Muslims constitute about a quarter of the total population in West Bengal. After Jammu and Kashmir (67 per cent) and Assam (31 per cent), West Bengal has the highest proportion of Muslim population. With 20.2 million Muslims, the state also accounts for about 15 per cent of the total Muslim population in the country.

While Muslims are spread out across the state, there are a number of pockets with a high concentration of Muslim population. Of the state’s 18 districts, there are at least 10 districts where Muslims constitute a quarter or more of the total population of the district. In three districts — Murshidabad (63 per cent), Malda (49.7 per cent) and Uttar Dinajpur (47.4 per cent) — the proportion is even higher. In these 10 districts where Muslims constitute about one-fourth of the total population, there are 140 assembly constituencies out of the total of 294. In other words, in about half the total number of assembly constituencies in the state, Muslim votes are crucial. It is thus clear that Muslims carry sufficient demographic weight to influence the electoral game of political parties in West Bengal.

How have Muslim voted in the past decades? Is the Left heavily dependent on the Muslim vote bank to perpetuate its rule in the state? Is the Left wary of shifting its support base among Muslims? A look at the vote share of the Left in these 10 districts might give us some clues about how Muslims have voted for the Left. In 2001 assembly elections, the Left had secured 49 per cent of votes polled in the state. There were only four districts out of 10, where the vote share of the Left was more or less equal to its overall average. Again in 2006, there were only four districts out of 10 where the party matched its overall vote share. But this is not to say that Muslims had not voted for the Left in the other six districts.

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