India, April 29 -- West Bengal resembles a state under siege. With more than 2,000 companies of paramilitary personnel, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has deployed unprecedented security measures and reshuffled the state bureaucracy, not seen in any other state poll in recent memory. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has left millions under scrutiny, fuelling allegations of selective exclusion. Phase 1 of polling on April 23 witnessed high turnout. While the Trinamool Congress (TMC) interprets this surge as evidence of continued public trust in Mamata Banerjee, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) reads it as silent anti-incumbency. Can the BJP convert its steady rise and finally breach West Bengal's electoral wall...