The Trinamool Congress (TMC) was racing ahead in West Bengal’s electoral contest against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), setting the stage for a big win in the politically crucial state, according to the latest trends on Sunday afternoon.
As of 3:30 pm, the TMC was ahead in 211 seats (22wins) and the BJP in 78 (five wins), with the ruling party comfortably crossing the halfway mark in the state with 294 assembly seats.
In the keenly-watched Nandigram seat, the BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee were neck and neck.
Around 3:30 pm, Adhikari was leading with merely 6 votes minutes after Banerjee took over briefly with 1,900 votes. BJP MP Locket Chatterjee was trailing in Chunchura, which falls under her Lok Sabha constituency.
The counting of votes began at 8 am, and initial leads indicated a neck-and-neck fight. Postal ballots were counted first. But as the day progressed, the TMC surged past the BJP in the race, leaving its challenger far behind.