Secondly, how many Lok Sabha seats might a 28% vote share fetch it? If the previous four elections are a marker, at one level, it depends on whether the leading parties can stitch an alliance. In 1998, in the absence of alliances, Trinamool won eight seats with a 26% share. In 2009, when the Trinamool and Congress struck a pre-poll alliance, the Trinamool finished second to CPM in vote share (33.1% versus 31.2%), but ended up winning five times as many seats (see graph 3). So, even if the BJP’s vote share surges in West Bengal, it might need a fragmented opposition to win seats.