ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at an essential feature of West Bengal politics, which is the limited influence of big national parties (the Congress and the BJP) in the state. Further, the chapter asks whether there is any possibility of increasing the support of those parties among the electorate of West Bengal especially after the 2014 Parliament and 2016 Assembly elections. It attempts to answer the questions mentioned by analysing the broad political trends in the state in the last four decades.
