Kolkata( West Bengal), May 2 : While the counting of votes for the 294-seat West Bengal election is sill underway, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) has already a majority in the West Bengal assembly by winning 180 of the 292 seats where polling was held.
As per ECI website, the party was also leading in 34 places. The state has a 294-member assembly but election was countermanded in Shamsherganj and Jangipur constituencies due to the death of candidates.
A party needs 147 seats for a simple majority in the House with effective strength of 292.
Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fell way below its expected number of seats and managed to win only 57 at the time of filing of this report .
Surprisingly , CM Mamata Banerjee lost to Suvendu Adhikari after EC retracted its earlier announcement of her win. Adhikari, formerly a party colleague of Banerjee’s changed sides and joined the BJP recently.
The CPI(M)-led Left Front and the Congress party, which ruled the state for nearly six decades between them, faced an unprecedented rout in West Bengal assembly elections trailing in all 292 seats.
An alliance with the newly-formed ISF did not seem to have helped the CPI(M)-led Left Front and the Congress combine.
An aggregate of six exit polls had predicted that Mamata Banerjee may just make it past the half-way mark.
( With Agency inputs )
