How can electoral success be sustained by a ‘lagging development’ regime?

Left coalition ruled West Bengal for uninterrupted three decades. The study reveals that despite ruling for such a long period the state still lags behind in eradication of problems like poverty, as compared to other Indian states. This paper seeks a clue to this by comprehensively evaluating West Bengal’s relative performance in demographic and socio-economic transformation. Still the party enjoys a considerable level of support as far as electoral gains are concerned.