The Election Commission’s early trends in the West Bengal Assembly polls on Sunday showed that the Trinamool Congress comfortably reached the halfway mark to form the government.
Counting of the votes in West Bengal and three other states – Assam, Kerala and Tamil Nadu – and the Union Territory of Puducherry began at 7 am. The majority mark in the 294-seat West Bengal Assembly is 148.
As of 12.45 pm, the Election Commission’s data showed that the Mamata Banerjee-led party was ahead in 202 seats while the Bharatiya Janata Party was leading in 77.
Banerjee, who contested from Nandigram against her former aide and TMC turncoat Suvendu Adhikari, was trailing with a small margin of 3,775 votes. In 2016, Adhikari had won with a margin of 81,230 votes.
Independent candidates were leading in two seats and the Rashtriya Secular Majlis Party was ahead in one constituency. Meanwhile, BJP ally All Jharkhand Students Union was leading in one seat that it contested in Purulia…