The Trinamool Congress district leaderships in Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar brought out “Ananda Michhils” or Happiness Marches on Friday evening with the message that they were confident of victory in all three seats.

The saffron camp pooh-poohed the marches, held a few hours after the scheduled 5pm closing time for voting, calling Trinamool’s resort an “act of losers”.

Avijit De Bhowmik, Cooch Behar Trinamool president, had posted on Facebook that an advance “victory rally” would roll out from the Das Brothers crossing (in Cooch Behar town) at 7.30pm.

Within minutes, the Trinamool establishment in Calcutta announced similar rallies in Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar around the same time.

Prakash Chik Baraik and Nirmal Chandra Roy -- Trinamool nominees for Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri -- led the marches in their constituencies. De Bhowmik led the Cooch Behar procession, which featured party flags and pictures of Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee. The turnouts at the marches ranged from 300 to 800.

Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia, Trinamool’s Cooch Behar candidate, could not participate in the march as it had been decided suddenly.

“People, especially women, came out and voted for the Trinamool Congress and confirmed the defeat of the BJP’s minister (of state),” De Bhowmik said.

“As the mood suggested we had won, we brought out the Ananda Michhil. The party workers did not want to wait till the official declaration of results.”

Such marches on polling day – a rare move in recent elections by any political party – took the BJP leadership by surprise. The party tried to retaliate by distributing sweets among the public in front of its district headquarters at Bangchatra Road in Cooch Behar town.

In Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar, the BJP did not take any retaliatory initiative, with a senior party leader saying: “Let the success itself make the noise.”

BJP Rajya Sabha MP Shamik Bhattacharya said: “After the first phase of the elections, Trinamool Congress workers and leaders including Mamata Banerjee are confident they would lose from all the three seats.”

The BJP had won all three with handsome margins five years ago.

“Trinamool’s so-called Ananda Michhil is to boost party workers’ morale in the other 39 seats. Trinamool’s was an act of losers,” Bhattacharya said.

However, it appears that Trinamool may have planned the victory marches in advance to try and shift the pressure onto the BJP.

Around 6pm, Trinamool spokesperson Shashi Panja and Ritabrata Banerjee held a news conference where they thanked the voters, especially the women, in all three constituencies for coming out in large numbers and purportedly voting for Bengal’s ruling party.

“We thank the voters of the three constituencies. People, especially the women, came out to cast their vote spontaneously. It’s clear from the body language of Nisith Pramanik that a junior minister of Narendra Modi’s cabinet will be defeated,” Panja, state industry minister, said.

Ritabrata, state president of party labour arm Inttuc, claimed that tea garden workers had voted against the BJP for its failure to keep its promise to open the closed tea gardens in Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar.

Political observers wondered whether Trinamool was engaging in psychological warfare with the BJP to take on its “400-plus” narrative.

“I can’t recall an instance of a political party bringing out such marches on the polling day itself,” said political scientist Biswanath Chakraborty.

“This is a move to keep the psychological pressure on the BJP, which mounted psychological pressure on all its opponents with its claim that (the NDA) tally would be more than 400.”

For Trinamool, the three north Bengal seats that voted on Friday are key not just to its final tally but also to keeping its ranks motivated for the remaining six phases.

“Till about two-three weeks ago, the consensus was that the BJP would win all the three seats.... Had the same message gone out after the polls, it would have been hard to keep the ranks motivated for the battles in the remaining 39 seats,” a source in Trinamool said.

“People across the state will now get a message (following the marches) that Trinamool is very much in the race.”

The source pleaded ignorance when asked whether the marches had been planned in advance.

Sizeable turnouts

By 5pm, Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar had reported handsome turnouts of 77.73 per cent, 79.33 per cent and 75.54 per cent, respectively. The figures are likely to increase as voting continued beyond the 5pm deadline at several dozen polling booths.

An Election Commission official said 33 per cent of voters had cast their votes before 11am.

In 2019, the turnouts in Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar had been 84.08 per cent, 86.51 per cent and 83.79 per cent.