The BJP has secured 60.29 per cent of the votes of the polling personnel in Bengal, suggesting Trinamul’s appeal may have reduced among state government employees, who form the backbone of the administration.

Some 108,210 Bengal government employees voted through postal ballots across the state, and 65,243 of them voted for the BJP, Election Commission data show. Trinamul secured only 25,791 of these votes, or 23.83 per cent.

Overall, the BJP led in these postal votes from 39 of the state’s 42 Lok Sabha constituencies.

“The trend clearly implies that the employees are not happy with the Bengal government,” said a senior state government official.

During the 2014 general election, Trinamul had bagged around 58 per cent of the state government employees’ postal ballots.

Sources in Nabanna said the aggressive way in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had tried to fan the discontent among the state government employees may have made a difference.

“At almost all his rallies in Bengal, Modi had chastised the state government for denying its employees adequate dearness allowance,” a source said.

“He also underlined that the state government was not implementing the sixth pay commission’s recommendations while in neighbouring (BJP-ruled) Tripura, government employees were getting the benefit of the seventh pay commission.”

In Bengal, a sixth pay commission was announced in November 2015. It has not handed in its recommendations yet, suggesting the cash-strapped state government does not want to shoulder the burden of increased salaries.

Dissatisfied employees cannot be good news for a government that faces civic polls next year and the Assembly polls in 2021.

“If the state government plans a series of projects to repair the damage witnessed in the Lok Sabha polls, it may struggle to complete them on time with less-than-enthusiastic employees,” an official said.

The erosion in votes among government staff can itself be a source of concern for Trinamul.

“The state government has about 8 lakh employees, who have a direct influence on 32 lakh votes if we consider that an employee has an average of four voters in their family. This is a significant number of votes,” an official said.

Another official explained the importance of postal ballots by citing the results at Arambagh Lok Sabha constituency, where Trinamul candidate Aparupa Poddar won by 1,142 votes.

“The BJP secured 1,032 votes through postal ballots in the constituency, compared with Trinamul’s 316, making the contest so close,” he said.

State and central government employees are given postal ballots once they have been put on election duty. They mark their preferences on the ballots and send them to the returning officers of the constituencies where they are voters. The postal ballots are counted before the counting of the electronic voting machine recordings starts.