The Trinamool Congress continues to maintain a massive lead in West Bengal as votes for the recently concluded Assembly elections are counted. As per data from the Election Commission at 3 pm, the Mamata Banerjee-led party was leading in more than 200 seats, with the BJP a distant second.
Even as many insist that it is too soon to tell, several Opposition leaders including Sharad Pawar, Akhilesh Yadav and Mehbooba Mufti have reached out to the TMC chief via twitter, congratulating her for the party's "stupendous victory".
While the day began with the TMC supremo trailing in Nandigram, Banerjee has since made a come back, shortening the gap considerably during the first half of the day. With two more rounds of counting left, Banerjee has now reportedly overtaken her former ally. As per our correspondent, she is now leading by almost 8000 votes in Nandigram.
As per updates shared by The Free Press Journal's Aritra Singha, TMC's Bidesh Ranjan Basu is projected to have won from the Uluberia East constituency, even as BJP's Shankar Ghosh wins from Siliguri. The Kharagpur constituency has been won by BJP celebrity candidate Hiran Chatterjee with a margin of 3119 votes, while TMC's Bidhan Upadhyay won in Baraboni. TMC candidates Bimalendu Singh Roy and Hareram Singh won from Karimpur and Jamuria respectively, while fellow party leader Arup Chakraborty won in Taldangra. TMC celebrity candidate Manoj Tiwary won from Shibpur while TMC has also won Raipur, Sujapur and Naihati.
In Tarakeshwar, former MP Swapan Dasgupta who is contesting under a BJP ticket is trailing behind TMC's Ramendu Sinharay, while BJP leader Mukul Roy is leading in Krishnanagar.