Counting began at 8 am this morning, starting with the postal ballots all over the country, and the reports so far indicate the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal is leading from 22 seats. The big news however, is that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is doing extremely well in Bengal – considering the party had won two seats in 2014 Lok Sabha polls – as they were leading in as many as 19 seats. In terms of the percentage of votes, the BJP has gained enormously in the state.
Early trends have indicated losses for the Trinamool Congress from some of the party’s important seats, especially Barrackpore where it is a prestige fight for Bengal’s ruling party. TMC’s Dinesh Trivedi was trailing while BJP’s Arjun Singh was ahead of him. Singh had joined the BJP on being denied a Trinamool Congress ticket.
Other Trinamool Congress candidates suffering setback were Moon Moon Sen from Asansol who was trailing far behind BJP’s Babul Supriyo. Trinamool Congress’ Dipak Adhikary (Dev) was initially trailing behind BJP’s candidate Bharati Ghosh, but succeeded in going ahead.
In Midnapore, Trinamool Congress’ Manas Bhuniya was trailing behind BJP’s Dilip Ghosh.
The CPI(M)’s Bikash Bhattacharya, was trailing from the Jadavpur seat – behind Trinamool Congress’ Mimi Chakraborty. The Congress is leading from only one seats, where Adhir Chowdhury is ahead of his nearest contestant, though by a thin margin. The Left parties weren’t leading from any seat till now.
