Early trends in East: Advantage TMC in Bengal; NDA leads in Odisha, Jharkhand, NE

After about three hours of vote counting in the Lok Sabha elections on Tuesday (June 4), here is how the eastern states stood.

After an edge-of-the-seat contest in West Bengal in early trends, with both TMC and BJP taking leads in about an equal number of seats, Mamata Banerjee’s party surged ahead around 10.30 am. By then, TMC had an edge over the saffron party, leading in 31 seats, while the BJP had only about 10 leads in their kitty. The Congress was leading in one.

Contestants leading and trailing

Among the major constituencies with the big names, Congress veteran Adhir Chowdhury was predictably leading in Baharampur. A tough contest was on in Krishnanagar where Amrita Roy of BJP is facing off against firebrand TMC leader Mahua Moitra. Around 10.30 am, Roy had a lead over Moitra who was expelled from the Parliament last year on charges of unethical conduct.

BJP’s SS Ahluwalia was leading in Asansol over TMC’s star candidate Shatrughan Sinha, while in Medinipur, the party’s Agnimitra Paul was leading. Among the other prominent BJP faces, Sukanta Majumdar was leading in Balurghat, Matua leader Shantanu Thakur from Bongaon, Rekha Patra in Basirhat (of which violence-torn Sandeshkhali is a part), Locket Chatterjee in Hooghly, Soumendu Adhikari in Contai (Kanthi), and controversial former Calcutta HC judge Abhijit Ganguly from Tamluk.

Former state BJP chief Dilip Ghosh was trailing in Bardhaman-Durgapur against former cricketer Kirti Azad of the TMC, while in Murshidabad, CPM leader Md Selim took an early lead but lost it later.

Among the prominent TMC names, Abhishek Banerjee was leading from Diamond Harbour, Dipak Adhikari aka Dev from Ghatal, Sudip Bandyopadhyay from Kolkata Uttar and Mala Roy from Kolkata Dakshin.

Odisha and Jharkhand

In neighbouring Odisha, BJP has a clear advantage with leads in 18 seats, while the BJD and Congress are leading in one each. Sambit Patra of the BJP is leading in Puri, whereas his party colleagues Bhartruhari Mahtab and Aparajita Sarangi are leading in Cuttack and Bhubaneshwar respectively.

In Jharkhand, too, it’s advantage NDA, with 11 leads, while INDIA is leading in three.

North East and Sikkim

Among the northeastern states, the NDA was leading in 10 seats in Assam while INDIA had leads in four. The NDA was also leading in both seats in Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura. INDIA was leading in one of Meghalaya’s two seats as well as Nagaland’s single seat.

In violence-torn Manipur, the Congress candidate had a lead in Inner Manipur while the NPF candidate had the lead in Outer Manipur. In Mizoram’s single seat, it was advantage ZPM, and the same for SKM in Sikkim.