Left set to sweep West Bengal

Kolkata, May 11: Continuing its winning spree, the Left Front looks set to retain power in West Bengal with the Communist coalition racing ahead in 226 seats as electoral trends poured in from different parts of the state.

Out of the three results declared so far, the Left has bagged two seats while one seat has gone to Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress. Mr Jaydeb Hazra (CPI-M) has won the Nanur seat, defeating his nearest AITC rival Gadadhar Hazra by 24,845 votes and CPI's Kamakhya Ranjan Das Mahapatra has bagged the Pataspur seat. The Trinamool Congress has retained the Rashbehari seat with Sobhandeb Chattopadhaya registering a win.

The Left Front has forged ahead in 226 of the 293 constituencies.

The Trinamool-BJP combine is lagging far behind with a lead in 38 seats, the Congress is ahead in 24 constituencies and the others lead in seven seats.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and other heavyweight Left candidates like Industry Minister Nirupam Sen, Power Minister Mrinal Banerjee, Health Minister Surya Kanta Mishra, Employment Minister Susanta Ghosh and Forest Minister Jogesh Burman are leading from their respective seats.

All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) and Tollywood matinee idol Tapas Pal is leading in Alipore constituency in Kolkata.

Bucking the trend, Trinamool candidate Javed Khan is leading in the Ballygunge seat by a margin of 7000 votes over his nearest rival and sitting Left Front MLA Rabin Deb.

UNI