West Bengal Election Results 2026 Live Updates: ‘EVMs may have been replaced’ — Abhishek Banerjee suspects looting of votes

The BJP's West Bengal win came down to five converging factors, according to party insiders. The women's vote swung by an estimated five percent towards the BJP, energised by the women's reservation push and the RG Kar case. Government employees — up to 50 lakh voters — responded to Amit Shah's promise of the Seventh Pay Commission within 45 days. The PM Narendra Modi versus CM Mamata Banerjee development narrative drew the middle class and first-time voters, whom the party targeted heavily on social media. Unprecedented Central forces deployment gave voters the confidence to vote without fear of TMC intimidation. And the SIR exercise, the party argues, simply ensured only genuine voters cast ballots.

Madhya Pradesh minister and BJP veteran Kailash Vijayvargiya, speaking from Indore, said the sun had set on Mamata Banerjee's politics and predicted that within three to four days TMC workers would begin joining the BJP.

On Humayun Kabir and the AJUP, Vijayvargiya called Kabir a close associate of Mamata Banerjee and alleged his party was formed as part of a conspiracy, suggesting the Babri replica episode and the subsequent split was a deliberate ploy. He said the whole exercise had only ended up exposing Mamata Banerjee further.

Mamata Banerjee has arrived at the Sakhawat Memorial counting hall in Kolkata, where votes for her Bhabanipur constituency are being tallied. The BJP's official lead count stands at 194 — 46 seats past the majority mark.

Her presence at the counting centre, as the broader state result moves beyond reach, makes Bhabanipur the last personal front in what has been a day of losses for the Trinamool Congress. Her lead over Suvendu Adhikari stood at 7,184 votes after round 12 with eight rounds remaining, enough of a cushion to hold, but not enough to be comfortable.

The Election Commission has declared four BJP victories. Agnimitra Paul has won Asansol Dakshin by 40,839 votes, the biggest declared margin of the day so far, with 119,582 total votes counted across all fifteen rounds. It is a comprehensive personal victory for the BJP's sitting MLA who has held this industrial belt seat since 2021.

Bharat Kumar Chetri wins Kalimpong by 21,464, the BJP taking both hill seats today alongside Darjeeling. Saikat Panja's Monteswar win by 14,798 over TMC minister Siddiqullah Chowdhury, declared earlier, is now formally on the won tally. Karfa Soumen wins Bhatar by 6,528 across all fourteen rounds.

The BJP's official won column now stands at four declared results, with leads in well over 180 more seats still converting to results as counting concludes constituency by constituency.

With violence already reported at counting centres in Barrackpore, Asansol and Dinhata today, BJP leader Arjun Singh has issued a public appeal to party workers and supporters in the Barrackpore organisational district asking them to stay restrained. He said attacking the homes or shops of Opposition supporters, or physically humiliating them, was against the BJP's party line and would not be tolerated.

He tagged the BJP's national and state handles as well as Samik Bhattacharya and Suvendu Adhikari in the post.

The Election Commission has officially declared Bhagawangola in Murshidabad. TMC's Reyat Hossain Sarkar wins, defeating CPI(M)'s Mahamudal Hasan by 56,407 votes. One of the TMC's biggest margins of the day — Bhagawangola is a Muslim-majority seat deep in the Murshidabad belt where the party's vote has held rock solid throughout counting.

The Election Commission has declared the first two official results of the day. BJP's Saikat Panja has won Monteswar, defeating TMC minister Siddiqullah Chowdhury by 14,798 votes. It is a significant scalp — Siddiqullah Chowdhury was a sitting minister in Mamata Banerjee's cabinet and a prominent Muslim face of the TMC. Monteswar has been in the BJP's lead column since the first round this morning and the margin has held firm throughout.

The TMC has taken Bhagawangola, with Reyat Hossain Sarkar defeating CPI(M)'s Mahamudal Hasan by a massive 56,407 votes. Bhagawangola in Murshidabad is a Muslim-majority constituency and one the TMC was always expected to hold comfortably, the margin reflects just how dominant the party has been in its core minority-belt seats today. These are the first seats to move from leads to declared results.

The celebrations breaking out in BJP party offices across West Bengal today have a deliberately Bengali flavour. Katla fish curry, vegetables cooked with fish head, and jhalmuri, the puffed rice street snack that is as Kolkata as it gets, are on the menu as workers gather to mark what looks like a historic first.

The BJP spent months countering the Trinamool Congress's narrative that the party would come for Bengalis' fish and their food culture if it came to power. BJP leaders ate fish on camera, state president Samik Bhattacharya publicly assured voters their plates were safe, and Amit Shah promised a Bengali Chief Minister.

In a major setback for the Trinamool Congress, more than 20 of its ministers were trailing on Monday as the counting of votes for the West Bengal assembly elections indicated a strong BJP surge.

Sources in the TMC said at least 23 ministers were trailing across constituencies, signalling a widespread challenge for the party leadership.

Among the prominent leaders, outgoing Education Minister Bratya Basu was trailing by 10,521 votes, Manas Ranjan Bhunia by around 4,450 votes, Women and Child Development Minister Shashi Panja by nearly 5,000 votes, and Finance Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya by 3,878 votes.

In Singur, BJP candidate Arup Kumar Das was leading by 4,924 votes over the TMC's Becharam Manna, dealing a blow to the ruling party.

Minister Snehasis Chakraborty was trailing by around 6,500 votes, while several other ministers, including Sujit Bose, Pulak Roy, Sabina Yasmin, Srikanta Mahato and Birbaha Hansda, were also behind their nearest rivals in the early rounds.

The trend assumes significance as the Mamata Banerjee-led government had relied heavily on its welfare outreach and strong local leadership network, with many of these leaders being key faces of governance at the grassroots level.

Party leaders, however, cautioned that the trends were based on early rounds of counting and could change as more votes are tallied through the day.

Officials of the Election Commission also maintained that clearer trends would emerge only after multiple rounds of counting are completed.

One of the more gracious responses from the TMC camp today. Sankar Malakar, the party's candidate in Matigara-Naxalbari, who is trailing BJP's Anandamay Barman by around 47,000 votes, did not reach for excuses or allegations.

He said the public's verdict had gone against the TMC and that there was no choice but to accept it, adding that if the party did not listen to public opinion, it would have nowhere to stand. He said the reasons for the loss would need to be discussed at a formal party meeting, but that now was not the time.

It is a different tone from the party's official line, which has focused on EC delays, counting irregularities and Mamata Banerjee's allegation that results favourable to the TMC are being withheld.

With the BJP heading for a historic majority if leads are anything to go by, the question of who leads the state is already being asked in Delhi and Kolkata.

Home minister Amit Shah had repeatedly promised that West Bengal would have a Bengali Chief Minister. All four names on this list are Bengali. The final call, as always in the BJP, will come from Delhi.

The 1:45 PM official EC snapshot confirms the BJP is leading in 194 seats across West Bengal. The margins tell the real story of how comprehensive this has been.

Some of the most watched individual battles are settling.

Mamata Banerjee holds a strong lead over Suvendu Adhikari in Bhabanipur after eight of 20 rounds — 35,522 votes to 20,028, a margin of 15,494. The lead had actually peaked at 17,371 after round seven before narrowing slightly in round eight as Adhikari picked up ground, suggesting the later rounds may be coming from BJP-leaning booths.

For context on how far this seat has travelled today, Adhikari led by 1,558 votes on the official count after round two. By round five the gap had swung to 16,706 in Mamata Banerjee's favour. It has broadly held in that range since, fluctuating between 15,000 and 17,000 as individual rounds report.

Twelve rounds remain. A 15,494-vote cushion at the halfway point is a meaningful buffer, but Suvendu Adhikari did say this morning that the seat's character would change in the later rounds. The next four or five rounds will be telling. If his vote is concentrated in the later booths, the gap could narrow sharply. If not, Mamata Banerjee's Bhabanipur survival looks increasingly likely.

As many as 285 seats are now showing official leads and the BJP has reached 188, around 40 seats past the majority mark with just eight constituencies left to formally register. The final shape of this result is now clear.

The Trinamool Congress has nudged to 92, a number that would represent the party's worst Assembly performance since before it came to power in 2011.

The BGPM, which had been showing one hill seat for most of the day, has dropped off the updated list entirely, suggesting a recount or a lead change in Kalimpong or Darjeeling. Worth watching as the final seats report. AJUP and AISF hold their two seats each and CPI(M) has one.

The combined non-BJP, non-TMC tally of seven seats is a thin but symbolic foothold for smaller forces in what has otherwise been a two-horse race all day. Eight seats still to officially report leads. No results formally declared yet, but West Bengal's first BJP government is a matter of when, not if.

BJP MP Aparajita Sarangi, speaking from Delhi, framed the party's Bengal performance in spiritual terms, invoking Maa Kali's blessings for West Bengal and Maa Kamakhya's blessings for Assam, where the party is also trending strongly. She called it an election for change and said the BJP was doing exceptionally well across all four states and Puducherry.

Suvendu Adhikari called this morning when he said the party would form a government with "more than 180 seats." With just 14 seats left to report official leads, the final tally is crystallising. The TMC has inched to 91, still stuck well below 100 on official figures. The party that won 215 seats four years ago is heading for a final number less than half of that. The more intriguing movement is further down the board. Both the Aam Janata Unnayan Party and the All India Secular Front have picked up a second seat each — AJUP, Humayun Kabir's outfit, and AISF, Nawsad Siddique's party, both now show two leads. Two breakaway forces that were written off before counting began have each won more than a single foothold. The BGPM, which had been showing one hill seat all day, has disappeared from the updated list. No seats formally declared yet.

Mamata Banerjee has personally entered the fray over the counting delay, alleging that the Election Commission is selectively withholding official results from constituencies where the Trinamool Congress is leading. It is the most direct intervention from the Chief Minister herself on the counting process since the morning began.

The allegation follows a similar line of attack from Finance Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya and Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose, who both raised questions about the pace and completeness of official data release earlier today. What was a party-level complaint has now escalated to the Chief Minister level.

The EC has not responded to the specific allegation. The official portal currently shows leads in 267 of 293 seats, with 26 constituencies still to formally register, some of which, if they are in TMC strongholds, could account for the gap Mamata Banerjee is pointing to.

Whether the delay is procedural or deliberate is impossible to verify independently at this stage. What is clear is that the TMC is building a narrative around the counting process itself, one that may become the basis for formal complaints or legal challenges if the final result confirms the BJP's commanding lead in the trends.

As many as 267 seats are now showing official leads. The BJP has nudged up to 173 while the Trinamool Congress has gained seven seats since the last update, moving from 83 to 90. The BJP's lead of 83 seats over the TMC on official figures is the widest it has been all day. With 27 seats still to formally report leads, the final official tally is beginning to take shape — the BJP will finish somewhere in the 170s, the TMC somewhere around 90 to 95, based on current trajectories.

The rest of the board is unchanged — one seat each for BGPM, AJUP, CPI(M) and AISF. No seats have been formally declared yet.

As many as 258 seats are now showing official leads and the BJP has extended its advantage to 171, which is 23 seats past the majority mark of 148, with 36 constituencies still to formally report.

The Trinamool Congress has not moved from 83 since the last update, suggesting the seats coming in are falling heavily on the BJP's side, of which 171 would, if it holds to final results, be the BJP's best-ever performance in any state election in eastern India. It would surpass even the more optimistic exit poll projections from before counting began. Suvendu Adhikari predicted more than 180 seats this morning; at this pace, that number is within reach.

The TMC at 83 official leads — with 36 seats still to report — is heading for a final tally somewhere around 90 to 95 seats. That would be a reduction of roughly 120 seats from its 2021 total of 215. The rest of the board remains unchanged at one seat each for BGPM, AJUP, CPI(M) and AISF.

Kunal Ghosh, the Trinamool Congress leader contesting from Beleghata, struck a measured note as the BJP's lead extended on the official count. He said it was inappropriate to draw conclusions from trends covering only three to five rounds, pointing out that 22 rounds remained in many seats. He said he never comments on trends and was not about to start today.

Leads do move, and some seats with close margins genuinely will flip before counting concludes. But with the BJP trending past 159 seats on official leads and the direction having held firm for several hours, the TMC's room for a mathematical comeback is narrowing by the round.

Kunal Ghosh himself is currently leading in Beleghata.

The official EC figure from Panihati confirms what the early trends had been showing. Ratna Debnath, the BJP candidate and mother of the trainee doctor raped and murdered at RG Kar Medical College in 2024, leads Trinamool Congress's Tirthankar Ghosh by 2,763 votes after the first of thirteen rounds — 6,892 to 4,129.

CPI(M)'s Kalatan Dasgupta, who was arrested by Bengal police during the RG Kar protests and contested from Panihati specifically because of his association with the justice movement, sits in third at 1,359. The Congress and independents are negligible.

Twelve rounds remain and the margin will move — but a 2,763-vote lead out of round one is a meaningful cushion. If Ratna Debnath wins this seat, it will be one of the most emotionally resonant individual results of this entire election — a direct verdict from the voters of Panihati on how they feel about the way the Trinamool Congress government handled the case that shook Bengal to its core.

Round 1 of 13 only, 12 rounds still to count.

West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026 · Source: Election Commission of India

The official tally has reached 224 seats and the BJP is at 144, just four away from the 148 majority mark on official figures, with 70 seats still to formally report.

The TMC holds steady at 76, its leads concentrated in the Muslim-majority belt and inner Kolkata as the earlier data showed. The gap between the two parties on the official count is now 68 seats.

The real talking point in this update is at the bottom of the list.

The All India Secular Front — Nawsad Siddique's party, which held the only non-BJP Opposition seat in the outgoing Assembly — has appeared on the official board with one seat. Earlier trends suggested the TMC's Saokat Molla was leading in Bhangar, which would have ended the ISF's Assembly presence entirely.

That this update shows the AISF on the board suggests Nawsad Siddique may be fighting back in Bhangar, or the ISF has picked up a seat elsewhere. Worth watching closely. The CPI(M) and AJUP each hold their one seat. BGPM keeps the hills. No seats officially declared yet, all figures remain leads.

The 11:24 AM official EC snapshot is the most comprehensive yet, and it paints a vivid picture of how wide and deep the BJP's day has been.

All 141 seats on this list are BJP leads, spread from the northernmost tip of the state in Mekliganj down through the hill seats, across the industrial belt of Asansol and Durgapur, through the Jungle Mahal, and into South Bengal's coastal and suburban seats.

A few numbers that stand out.

Two hundred seats are now officially reporting and the BJP's lead over the Trinamool Congress has stretched to 53 — 125 to 72. To put that in context, 125 is already comfortably past the BJP's best-ever Assembly performance in Bengal, which was 77 seats in 2021. The party is in genuinely uncharted territory in this state now, and there are still 94 seats to officially report.

The Trinamool Congress at 72 is in a position that would have been unthinkable when today began — trailing a rival it has dominated for 15 years by over 50 seats on official figures, with the count still running. The rest of the board is unchanged: BGPM holds one hill seat, AJUP holds its one Murshidabad surprise, CPI(M) clings to its single return to the official tally.

No seats have been formally declared yet. But 125 seats trending for the BJP, with the official count only covering two-thirds of constituencies so far, makes the arithmetic for the Trinamool Congress look very difficult indeed.

The Election Commission's official tally has hit 178 seats and the BJP is now past the century mark at 109, still well short of the 148 needed for a majority on official figures, but the direction of travel is unmistakable.

The Trinamool Congress is at 66, meaning the BJP's official lead is 43 seats across the seats that have formally reported enough rounds to register.

The real news in this update is at the bottom of the list. The CPI(M) has appeared on the official EC board for the first time today — one seat, but it is the party's first official presence in a West Bengal Assembly count since it was wiped out entirely in 2021. Humayun Kabir's AJUP holds its one seat too, a result that seemed improbable when the day began. The BGPM keeps its hill seat as expected.

Note: 115 seats are still to officially report. No seats have been formally declared yet, all figures remain leads, not results.

CPI(M)'s Md. Mostafijur Rahaman is leading with 6,254 votes after round one, ahead of Trinamool Congress's Humayun Kabir, a different Humayun Kabir to the AJUP founder, who has 5,636 votes so far, trailing by 618. The BJP's Nandadulal Pal is a distant third at 1,644, and the AJUP candidate Md. Mosharaf Hossain polls just 361.

The result is a small early signal that the CPI(M) may have life in some Muslim-majority Murshidabad seats, particularly where its local organisational roots run deep. It also shows the BJP is not a factor in this particular constituency, making it a straight Left vs TMC fight for now. Seventeen rounds remain; this lead will move.

BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, currently trailing Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur, struck a confident note despite the early deficit.

He said Mamata Banerjee would lead in certain booths and he would lead in others, predicting he would overturn the trend once counting moves past ward 77. He said the educated voters of Kolkata would back the BJP, and described the overall statewide picture as "a clear mandate" and "the win of the people of West Bengal."

He also said the BJP had performed well in seats it had not expected to win, calling the result unexpectedly strong in parts. The claim that he will recover in Bhabanipur as later rounds come in mirrors his prediction from early this morning that the seat's true picture would only emerge in rounds nine or ten. Several rounds remain to be counted. Suvendu Adhikari is contesting from both Bhabanipur and Nandigram.

He is currently leading in Nandigram. If he wins both and Bhabanipur is one of them, he will have to vacate one seat, triggering a bypoll.

The Election Commission's official tally now covers 82 seats. The BJP's lead of 52 to the Trinamool Congress's 28 reflects a near 2:1 advantage on the official count consistent with the broader trends from television channels. The notable new entry is the Aam Janata Unnayan Party, the outfit floated by suspended TMC MLA Humayun Kabir, of Babri Masjid replica fame, showing in one seat on the official tally. That is a result few would have predicted; Kabir had been trailing in Naoda earlier this morning. Congress and the Left are still to appear on the official EC board. No seats have been formally declared yet.

Mamata Banerjee's lead in Bhabanipur has extended to 1,996 votes, a meaningful consolidation from the early rounds when she was briefly trailing. The margin is still modest given the number of rounds remaining — Suvendu Adhikari had predicted this morning that the picture would only become definitive from rounds nine or ten onwards. Several rounds are still to be counted. The seat that Mamata Banerjee has held since 2011 remains one of the most watched of the day.

BJP candidate Rekha Patra is leading in Hingalganj in North 24 Parganas in early trends. Patra became one of the BJP's most prominent faces in Bengal after she emerged as a voice for women alleging assault and land-grabbing in Sandeshkhali — one of the most charged local issues of this election cycle. An early lead on her Assembly debut would be among the more pointed individual verdicts of the day.

A flurry of seat trends in the last 10 minutes. Trinamool Congress's Firhad Hakim — Kolkata Mayor and Mamata Banerjee's closest political lieutenant — is leading in Kolkata Port, offering the party some relief in the city. BJP's Dilip Ghosh is ahead in Kharagpur Sadar, Swapan Dasgupta leads in Rashbehari, and Rudranil Ghosh is leading in Shibpur — three South Bengal seats the BJP needs to hold if it is to sustain its majority-bound trend. On the TMC side, Shreya Pande is leading in Maniktola, and Becharam Manna holds a narrow 397-vote edge in the symbolically loaded Singur.

After trailing Suvendu Adhikari in the opening rounds, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has turned the Bhabanipur trend around and is now leading in her own constituency. It is a personal lifeline in what has otherwise been a brutal morning for the Trinamool Congress — with the BJP+ sitting above 148 seats statewide, the battle for Bengal may be all but decided, but Mamata Banerjee's own political survival is still being fought round by round in South Kolkata.

Suvendu Adhikari had predicted early this morning that the picture in Bhabanipur would only become clear from rounds nine or ten onwards. The reversal in trend suggests the seat's Muslim and minority voters — and perhaps sections of the urban bhadralok — are coming through for Mamata Banerjee in the later rounds, even as the BJP's Hindu consolidation strategy has delivered across much of the rest of the state.

Bhabanipur has not been won by anyone other than Mamata Banerjee since 2011. A loss here tonight, on top of a statewide defeat, would be politically devastating. A win would give her a platform to lead the Opposition from.

TMC candidate Udayan Guha is trailing in Dinhata, one of North Bengal's most volatile seats in Cooch Behar district. Dinhata has a history of razor-thin margins, it was decided by just 57 votes in a previous contest, and has been a key BJP target in the region. An early deficit for Guha is consistent with the BJP's strong showing across North Bengal so far today.

Trinamool Congress's Pabitra Kar is trailing in Nandigram as BJP's Suvendu Adhikari holds a lead of approximately 1,300 votes after the first two rounds. Speaking on the early trends, Suvendu Adhikari said he expected a lead of around 1,100 after round one and that the picture in Bhabanipur, where he is also contesting against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, would become clearer from rounds nine or ten onwards. He said there had been Hindu voter consolidation in favour of the BJP and a fragmentation of the Muslim vote, which he described as a positive signal for his party. He also appealed for peace across the state, saying no one should be provoked into doing anything wrong.

The Election Commission's first batch of official leads covers five seats. The BJP is ahead in three — Agnimitra Paul holds the biggest lead of the group at 6,271 votes in Asansol Dakshin after one of 15 rounds, Saikat Panja leads by 3,486 in Monteswar, and Lakshmi Kanta Sau is ahead by 976 in Jhargram, both after one of 21 rounds. In the hills, Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha's Ruden Sada Lepcha leads by 457 votes in Kalimpong after one of 12 rounds. The Trinamool Congress's sole official lead at this stage comes from Deganga, where Anisur Rahaman Bidesh is ahead by 2,184 votes after one of 20 rounds. All five seats are at round one only, margins will move considerably.

Trinamool Congress candidate Snehasish Chakraborty is leading in Jangipara in Hooghly district. Hooghly has been one of the more competitive districts this cycle, with the BJP having made inroads in recent elections. An early TMC lead here suggests the party's South Bengal base is holding in some parts.

The BJP+ has broken through the 100-seat barrier and opened a 19-seat lead over the Trinamool Congress with just 105 constituencies left to declare. The maths is becoming stark for Mamata Banerjee's camp — the TMC+ is currently running 42 seats behind where it stood at this stage in 2021, when it had 124 seats showing. The BJP+ by contrast is 36 seats ahead of its 2021 pace.

The BJP+ needs 47 seats from the remaining 105 to cross the 148 majority mark — a strike rate of roughly 45%. The TMC+ needs 66 from those same 105 seats, a rate of 63%, to get there first. Congress has climbed to five seats, the Left has finally opened its account with one, and an independent or smaller party candidate leads in one seat.

BJP+ needs 47 from 105 remaining seats. TMC+ needs 66.

The BJP+ has broken through the 100-seat barrier in early leads and opened a 19-seat lead over the Trinamool Congress with just 105 constituencies left to declare. The maths is becoming stark for Mamata Banerjee's camp — the TMC+ is currently running 42 seats behind where it stood at this stage in 2021, when it had 124 seats showing. The BJP+ by contrast is 36 seats ahead of its 2021 pace.

The BJP+ needs 47 seats from the remaining 105 to cross the 148 majority mark — a strike rate of roughly 45%. The TMC+ needs 66 from those same 105 seats, a rate of 63%, to get there first. Congress has climbed to five seats, the Left has finally opened its account with one, and an independent or smaller party candidate leads in one seat.

After trailing by 26 seats just an hour ago, the Trinamool Congress has stormed back to draw level with the BJP+ at 77 apiece — a turnaround that suggests South Bengal's Presidency division seats are now reporting in force. This is exactly the comeback Mamata Banerjee's camp was banking on. With 136 seats still to declare, the result is genuinely open.

Congress has doubled its tally to four, consolidating its showing in Malda and Murshidabad. The Left remains off the board. Both the BJP+ and TMC+ now need 71 more seats from the remaining 136 to reach the 148 majority mark — every seat from here will count.

136 seats still to declare. This contest is too close to call.

Early trends from Nandigram show BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari ahead of Trinamool Congress's Pabitra Kar. It is a significant early signal as it was here in 2021 that Suvendu Adhikari defeated Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee by roughly 1,900 votes in one of the most bitterly fought and closely scrutinised results in Bengal's recent political history.

The Trinamool Congress had specifically targeted Nandigram as a seat to win back this cycle, fielding Pabitra Kar, a former Adhikari associate, to add a personal edge to the contest.

A Suvendu Adhikari hold here, combined with his challenge to Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur, would consolidate his standing as the BJP's undisputed face in Bengal. Suvendu Adhikari is contesting from both Nandigram and Bhabanipur this cycle. If he wins both, he will vacate one seat, triggering a bypoll.

Early trends from Malda district show Congress candidate Mausam Noor leading in Malatipur, with the party also ahead in Mothabari, the seat that witnessed extraordinary scenes of a judicial officer being gheraoed by voters protesting name deletions during the SIR exercise in April.

In Malda as a whole, early trends have the BJP leading in six assembly segments, the TMC in four, and Congress showing in two. Malda was among the districts that saw some of the highest voter deletions under the Special Intensive Revision — making Congress's early showing here particularly significant. The party had specifically targeted Malda, Murshidabad and Uttar Dinajpur, the three Muslim-majority border districts, as its best prospects for breaking its 2021 duck in Bengal.

Early trends from Bhabanipur show Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee trailing Bharatiya Janata Party's Suvendu Adhikari in the constituency she has held since 2011. It is among the most consequential early signals of the day, though counting has only just begun in the seat and the numbers will shift significantly as more rounds are tallied.

The seat had already been flagged as genuinely competitive this cycle. Around 51,000 voters were removed from Bhabanipur's rolls under the Special Intensive Revision — a figure that sat uncomfortably close to Mamata Banerjee's 2021 bypoll winning margin of 58,835. Her lead in the Bhabanipur segment had also shrunk to just 8,297 votes during the 2024 Lok Sabha count.

The BJP+ is fractionally ahead as trends come in from just 18 of 293 seats — a picture that could look very different within the hour. Compared to the same stage in 2021, the BJP+ is actually running one seat behind its opening tally of 11, while the TMC+ is one seat ahead of where it started that day. Congress and the Left front have yet to show on the board. With 276 seats still to report, nothing can be read into these numbers yet.

As the first EVM rounds are tallied, Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress and the BJP are level at one seat apiece as per early trends. The numbers will shift rapidly as more rounds are added, at this stage they reflect almost nothing about the final outcome. Exit polls had most pollsters giving the BJP an edge, while Peoples Pulse projected a clear TMC majority. The real picture will emerge over the next two to three hours.

Counting of votes has begun across West Bengal's 293 constituencies. Postal ballots are being tallied first. EVM counting will commence at 8:30 AM. Results will be updated round by round on the Election Commission's ECINET platform. The first trends are expected within the hour. Stay with us.

Trinamool Congress leader Shashi Panja has alleged irregularities at counting centres, claiming that documents used by agents to track vote counting were being discarded. Raising questions over on-ground conduct, she asked whether counting agents were being prevented from doing their job properly.

BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari began counting day with a visit to the Lakshmi Narayan Temple, saying "God is with us" and predicting a government that "protects the interests of Sanatan Dharma". TMC leader Kunal Ghosh struck an equally confident note from the other side, claiming Mamata Banerjee would return with more than 200 seats, while also alleging that counting agents at some venues had been denied basic facilities such as food and water.

BJP leader and sitting MLA Agnimitra Paul is contesting to retain the Asansol Dakshin seat in the West Bengal Assembly Elections against TMC's Tapas Banerjee. Paul, who won the seat in 2021, expressed high confidence in a BJP win, predicting a " tsunami " following high voter turnout.

BJP's sitting MLA Agnimitra Paul, who defeated Saayoni Ghosh here in 2021, defends the seat in a direct rematch with the TMC.

Former Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta challenges a TMC constituency that the party has not lost in three decades. Dasgupta previously ran from Tarakeswar in 2021 and came close but fell short.

Kolkata Mayor and Mamata Banerjee's most trusted political lieutenant, Firhad Hakim has held this seat since 2011. A loss here would be as damaging symbolically as almost any result outside Bhabanipur.

Former BJP state president Dilip Ghosh returns to the Assembly fray after losing the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Bardhaman–Durgapur. The BJP won this seat in 2021 by a narrow margin over Pradip Sarkar, who is back for another attempt.

Bhabanipur is the most-watched seat in West Bengal. Mamata Banerjee's 2021 bypoll margin here was 58,835 but around 51,000 voters were removed under the SIR, and her Lok Sabha segment lead had already shrunk to 8,297 in 2024. Suvendu Adhikari, who defeated her in Nandigram in 2021, is contesting both seats this cycle.

The BJP is already in power directly or in alliance across 17 states and union territories. With Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray, Arvind Kejriwal, Akhilesh Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav all having suffered setbacks in their own states, Mamata Banerjee remains one of the last veteran regional leaders still governing a large state. A BJP victory here would further compress the Opposition's territorial footprint and even the Congress, which has fought the TMC in Bengal, would prefer the state stay out of BJP hands to preserve a crucial Opposition stronghold.

India's largest exit pollster, Axis My India, released projections for every other state but declined to publish Bengal numbers, citing an unusually high refusal rate. Founder Pradeep Gupta said 70% of voters they approached refused to participate in the survey. It is a data point worth holding onto as trends come in today: if the electorate was that reluctant to reveal its preference even after voting, the exit polls that did publish Bengal numbers, most of which favour the BJP, were working with a skewed sample from the start.

285: Polling stations ordered to revote

60: Booths where tampering was confirmed

53,967: Electors affected, 22.82% of the seat

May 21: Repoll date

May 24: Results

The Election Commission found that ballot buttons on EVMs in Falta had been masked with black tape during the April 29 vote, preventing voters from casting ballots for at least one candidate. An initial scrutiny was dismissed as "mechanical and hurried"; video footage reviewed later showed "serious procedural violations". The EC also found evidence of booth capturing and said the integrity of votes already recorded had been "compromised beyond ascertainment". Falta's result will not be part of today's count, all 293 other seats will declare.

As polls closed in Bhabanipur, Mamata Banerjee declared the TMC would get a two-thirds majority statewide. Adhikari, contesting against her here while also defending Nandigram, made the identical claim for the BJP — and added that Mamata would lose by over 200 votes in her own booth. One of them will be badly wrong. The seat is among the most closely watched in the state: Mamata's 2021 margin was 58,835 votes, but 51,000 names were removed from the rolls under SIR, and her 2024 Lok Sabha lead in the segment had already shrunk to 8,297.

After establishing dominance across much of India, the BJP drew up what insiders call a Coromandel blueprint, a long-term push along the eastern and southern coastline through West Bengal, Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. Odisha fell in 2024. Bengal, designated the "final frontier", is today's test. Amit Shah has personally camped in the state for the better part of the campaign's final two weeks, backed by trusted lieutenants including Union Minister Bhupender Yadav and national general secretary Sunil Bansal.

The CPI(M) is contesting 195 seats this time in alliance with the ISF and CPI(ML) Liberation, having drawn a complete blank in 2021 with just 4.73% of the vote. Its bet this cycle is a cohort of young leaders–Minakshi Mukherjee, Mayukh Biswas, Kalatan Dasgupta, Dipsita Dhar, Afreen Begum–running explicitly on jobs, education and governance rather than religion or welfare handouts. Whether that message cuts through a TMC-BJP contest will be one of the stories to watch as trends come in.

From standing on J P Narayan's car bonnet as a youth Congress activist, to appearing in the Supreme Court in her hawai chappals to challenge the SIR, to personally walking into the ED-raided I-PAC office and walking out with a green folder and a laptop, Mamata Banerjee has built an entire political identity on the image of someone who takes on a machine bigger than herself. At 71, she has addressed 94 public meetings and 13 padayatras since March 25. Win or lose today, few would argue she did not fight.

The counting is yet to begin, but tempers are already rising in Bhabanipur.

Before counting begins, tension is tangible on the ground in West Bengal as a verbal argument broke out between counting agents of the TMC and the BJP outside a centre in Bhabanipur. The exchange took place at Sakhawat Memorial School, one of the key counting locations in the constituency.

Bhabanipur is not just another seat, it is where Mamata Banerjee is in the fray.

With high stakes and a closely watched contest, early friction like this reflects the charged mood. Security presence is expected to tighten as counting formally gets underway.

Agency-wise Projections Matrize projects a close contest, giving BJP 146–161 seats and TMC 125–140 seats, with Others at 6–10 seats. This places BJP near or just above the majority mark.

An analysis of deletion and turnout data flags 96 seats with a telling pattern. In 48 of them, total votes polled this election were lower than those polled in 2021. Those same 48 seats account for 28% of the 27.16 lakh names removed from the rolls under the Special Intensive Revision. The BJP had won 15 of those 48 seats in 2021.