West Bengal panchayat polls: Early trends show Trinamool Congress leading

The ruling Trinamool Congress today darted ahead in 1,800 gram panchayat seats while the BJP and the CPI(M) were leading in 100 and 30 gram panchayat seats, as per initial trends available at 10 am, SEC officials said.

The counting of votes began at 8 am amid tight security, the State Election Commission officials said.

The panchayat elections were held for 621 zilla parishads, 6,123 panchayat samitis and 31,802 gram panchayats in West Bengal on May 14.

Of the 48,650 seats in 3,358 gram panchayats, 16,814 were uncontested and of the 9,217 seats in 341 panchayat samitis, 3,059 were uncontested. In the 20 zilla parishads, 203 of the 825 seats were uncontested, the sources said. 

The voting was also marred by widespread violence which led to 568 booths in the state to undergo repolling.

The huge-scale clashes between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers, resulted in the death of at least 12 people.

(With inputs from PTI)