TMC leads in 206, Mamata leads NandigramMamata Banerjee looks set to win a third term in Bengal

Counting of votes for the 294-seat West Bengal election 2021 is underway. Early trends emerging in results to the five state Assembly elections on Sunday showed that incumbent Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) might end up convincingly winning in West Bengal, while challenger Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could fall way below its expected number of seats in the 194-seat state Assembly (elections were held in 292 constituencies, so the halfway mark is 146.

Trinamool and the BJP ran a bitter, no holds barred campaign that defied Covid safety rules as well as the poll code.

Shuvendu Adhikari, formerly a party colleague of Banerjee’s changed sides and joined the BJP recently.

The fight for the Nandigram assembly constituency is so far the most interesting as the TMC supremo is contesting from this seat for the first time and was trailing behind BJP's Suvendu Adhikari, who was once the CM's close aide.

As soon as the results were confirmed, Mamata Banerjee was was walking out of her house in Kalighat and entering the office, reports the Anandabazar.

As of 4:00 pm, TMC was ahead in 206 of the state’s 294 seats, while the BJP was leading in 84. The Left was leading in just one seat.

Exit polls have predicted a close contest between the TMC and BJP, who trained guns at each other during massive election rallies that were later criticised for being conducted during the worrisome wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. If Mamata Banerjee's TMC manages to hold on, it will a remarkable achievement as the party has been weakened by desertions, faced significant anti-incumbency, and appeared to be behind the BJP for much of the campaign.

Mamata Banerjee, who has been in power for 10 years and is arguably fighting the toughest poll of her political career, has been able to thwart the challenge by the battle-hardened election army of the BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.

The BJP, which had just three seats in the 294-member Assembly in the 2016 Assembly polls and went to win 18 out of 42 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, had pulled out all stops in the state in a determined bid to oust Banerjee, a vocal critic of Prime Minister Modi, and add another state to its tally of 17.