Trinamool Congress took a massive lead in the six-phase West Bengal Assembly Election (total seats 294 and the magic figure 148) on Thursday.
The counting started at 8 am and by 9.23 am TMC crosses the halfway mark by leading in 209 seats. Left and BJP is leading in 74 and 10 seats respectively.
Since morning, TMC Supporters and media persons gathered in front state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's Kalighat residence. A large number of police officers were deployed in front of her residence to prevent any untoward incident.
Scene in front of Congress and CPI (M) state offices is quiet. "The sentiment was against the opposition in West Bengal. Party's performance is a debacle. The decision on going with the Congress will be reviewed," CPI (M) leader Hannan Mollah said.
Must to follow is Bhowanipur constituency in Kolkata which witnessed a three-way battle between heavyweights like Mamata, Congress' Deepa Dasmunshi and BJP's Chandra Bose. As per latest report Mamata is leading by 3,000 votes (approx).
Jailed TMC leader Madan Mitra is trailing from Kamarhati.
Actor-politicians Locket Chatterjee is leading in Mayureshwar, while Jagmohan Dalmiya's daughter Baishali Dalmiya, leading from Bally in Howrah.
In Bardhaman district, TMC and CPI (M) supporters clashed with each other. Some of the houses of Left supporters were allegedly ransacked by the TMC cadres.
BJP's star campaigner and actor-politicians Rupa Ganguly is trailing from North Howrah constituency.
The early winning trends of 1,961 candidates (which include 198 women) are expected to be declared by afternoon.
As per tradition, counting began with opening of the postal ballots and EVMs were opened immediately thereafter.
There are total 77,413 electronic voting machines and the counting start across 90 centres across the state.
Though exit polls have predicted that Trinamool Congress will retain power in the state, but many feel that her vote percentage is likely to be affected following the Left and Congress joining hands.
Around 82.80% of the total 6.55 crore electorate had exercised their franchise across 77,247 polling stations.
Despite being on the backfoot because of the Saradha chit fund scam and the Narada sting operation, several exit polls have predicted that Mamata will return to power.
A tight three-tier security layer has been laid out during the counting process with Sec 144 being imposed on a 100 metre radius of counting venues. The innermost security layer is being manned by central forces and state police personnel is not allowed to enter the counting hall.
Only authorised personnel are allowed to enter the venue while only the observers have been given the liberty to carry mobile phones with them. Each of the 294 constituencies has one counting observer to monitor the entire process.
Additionally, a videographer is also documenting the counting in all centres.
The Election Commission will declare trends at the end of each round of counting.
Since there has been lot of gap between polling and counting in the state, poll panel officials have made special arrangements for extra power packs as batteries of many EVMs may have been drained out during this period.
In the event of malfunctioning of EVMs, engineers from the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) will be called in to retrieve the result from auxiliary display unit of the EVM.
If the engineers fail to retrieve then a decision for further action will be taken by the commission.
On Friday, all central security forces will leave the state after keeping the EVMs back in the strong rooms.
Top officials of the Election Commission in Delhi will arrive in the evening on Thursday for completing formalities related to issuing certificates to the winning candidates.
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