Bengal election results: BJP crosses halfway mark in leads

The Bharatiya Janata Party was on Monday leading the Trinamool Congress as the votes in the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections were being counted.

As of 1 pm, the Hindutva party was leading in 192 seats, media reports and data from the Election Commission showed. The trends indicated that the party had crossed the halfway mark in leads.

A party or an alliance needs 148 seats in the 294-member Assembly to secure a majority.

The ruling Trinamool Congress was leading in 97 seats, while the Left Front was ahead in two, early trends showed. Counting began at 8 am.

As vote counting progressed, the TMC, however, alleged irregularities in the counting process, claiming that there was a delay and lack of transparency in the release of trends.

TMC MP Sagarika Ghose questioned the Election Commission why it was not releasing trends for all 293 seats. “More than 70+ seats trends have been intentionally not shown by EC,” she said in a social media post. “Please immediately release the data for all 293 seats.”

Earlier in the day, TMC leader and West Bengal minister Shashi Panja alleged that poll personnel were delaying the entry of authorised counting agents of political parties into counting centres, PTI reported.

Polling was held in two phases on April 23 and April 29 with...

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