June 4th 2024.
The long-awaited moment has arrived as the counting of votes for all seven phases of the Lok Sabha elections has officially begun at 8am on Tuesday. With tight security measures in place at all counting centers, the process will kick off with the counting of postal ballots and will continue until the final tallies are completed.
In Odisha, the counting of votes has also commenced for 147 Assembly constituencies and 21 Lok Sabha seats. According to officials, these seats had polling in four phases between May 13 and June 1. As the initial results started pouring in, it was reported that the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were in a neck-and-neck competition in West Bengal, with 19 and 17 seats respectively.
The Election Commission officials confirmed that TMC's candidate and current MP Abhishek Banerjee is leading in Diamond Harbour constituency over his closest rival Abhijit Das from the BJP. Another TMC candidate, Rachana Banerjee, is also ahead in the race for the Hooghly seat after the counting of postal ballots, beating her main opponent and sitting MP Locket Chatterjee from the BJP. Meanwhile, three-time MP Satabdi Roy from TMC is taking the lead in Birbhum seat against BJP's Piya Saha.
However, in a surprising turn of events, heavyweight TMC candidate Saugata Roy is trailing in the Dum Dum parliamentary seat, while BJP's Shilbhadra Dutta is leading, according to initial trends reported by TV channels. Although, some channels also claimed that BJP was leading in 18 seats while TMC was ahead in 17 seats.
Moving on to Uttarakhand, news channels have reported that the BJP is leading in all five Lok Sabha seats. While the Election Commission is yet to release the official numbers, former Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat is said to be leading in Haridwar, Mala Rajya Lakshmi Shah in Tehri Garhwal, Anil Baluni in Garhwal, Ajay Bhatt in Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar, and Ajay Tamta in Almora. The BJP has been dominating all five seats in the state since 2014.
As the counting of postal ballots is underway, initial trends have shown Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh leading in their respective seats of Varanasi and Lucknow. In Kerala, sitting Congress MP Rahul Gandhi from Wayanad and Shashi Tharoor from Thiruvananthapuram have started off with a lead as the postal votes were being counted.
Back in West Bengal, the TMC and BJP are still in a tight race as the counting of postal ballots continues. While the TMC has a slight edge at the moment, the BJP is not far behind. The final results are eagerly awaited as the nation watches with bated breath.
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