While party wise performance in an individual district or constituency does not help us assess how Muslims have voted for different political parties in the state in the last few elections, findings of a survey conducted by the Center for the Study of Developing Societies would, to some extent, could be illuminating.

A cursory look at the proportion of Muslim votes to total votes polled by the Left in many past elections unfolds a story that indeed encompasses commonsense. Overall, Muslims have not voted for the Left disproportionate to their share in the total population. Muslims constitute 25 per cent of the total population in West Bengal. In 2001, Muslims accounted for about 27 per cent of total votes polled by the Left. If we consider the 2001 assembly election as the base, the share of Muslim votes in the votes of the Left has been on the decline. For example, in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections and the 2006 assembly elections, Muslim votes accounted for about 24 and 23 per cent of the Left’s total vote. Thus two things emerge out of this. One, the support of Muslims to the Left is not much beyond their proportion to total population of the state. Second, even this much support of Muslims to the Left is gradually waning. One might ask: if Muslims are not so solidly behind the Left, then why is the Left then slow to deal with the rubble rousers?

... contd.