The ruling Trinamool Congress looked set to sweep the violence-scarred rural polls keeping intact the mandate it won two years back during the assembly polls by taking a seemingly unassailable lead in results declared till now by the State Election Commission.
The TMC has won in 30,391 gram panchayat seats, besides leading in 1,767 seats, according to the SEC as of 11.30 pm on Tuesday.
Its nearest rival Bharatiya Janata Party has won 8,239 seats and is leading in 447 seats. In all elections are being held for 63,229 gram panchayat seats.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist has won 2,534 and is leading in 237 seats. The Congress won 2,158 seats and is leading in 151.
The TMC won 2,612 panchayat samiti seats while leading 627 seats. The BJP has won 275 and is leading in 149 seats, while CPI-M has won 63 seats and is leading in 53 others and Congress has won in 50 seats and is leading in 26 seats.
Elections were held for 9,728 Panchayat Samiti seats.
TMC has also won all 88 Zila Parishad results declared so far and is leading in 163 others while CPI-M has is leading in 4 seats, while Congress is leading in 2 and the BJP in 13.
In all, there are 928 Zila Parishad seats.
Though the counting process was largely peaceful, there were stray incidents of bombs being thrown outside a counting centre and political workers of various parties clashing.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who had suffered an injury during campaigning thanked people for reposing trust in her party.
"It's TMC all the way in rural Bengal. I want to thank the people for their love, affection and support towards the TMC. This election has proved that only TMC resides in the heart of the people of the state," Banerjee said in a social media post..
The elections were keenly contested as they were seen by all parties as an indicator of which way the wind will blow in the 2024 parliamentary elections from this part of the country.
The violence which rocked the panchayat polls held on Saturday has claimed at least 15 lives with 11 of them from the ruling TMC.
Since elections were announced last month, the number of people who died in poll-related incidents has been 33, with the ruling party suffering 60 per cent of the deaths.
Allegations of vote tampering and violence by various parties forced the SEC to order re-polling in 696 seats on Monday, which passed more or less peacefully. Intervention by the Calcutta high court had seen the deployment of central police forces on both election and counting days.
Though Bengal has a long history of violent rural polls with 40 people killed in one single day of polling during the 2003 panchayat elections, this year's violence which was covered extensively by the media focused national attention on it.
Governor CV Ananda Bose who had rushed to Delhi to give a report on the violence told newspersons "Political parties should realise elections are not grounds to examine one's physical strength".
Officials said the counting process was largely peaceful thought stray incidents were reported -- including allegations of bombs being thrown outside a counting centre at Bongaon, the beating up of a local ISF leader outside another counting centre and lathi charge by central policemen on duty at places where crowds had gathered in large numbers and breached the security of certain counting centres.
Vote counting is on at 339 venues spread across 22 districts and is likely to carry over to Wednesday.
The maximum number of counting centres is in South 24 Parganas at 28, while the minimum is in Kalimpong at four. Some northern districts are also facing inclement weather.
"Counting began at 8 am and is likely to continue for the next two days. It will take time for the ballots to be counted and the results to be compiled," an SEC official said.
In Darjeeling hills, out of the 598 seats in Darjeeling and 281 in Kalimpong, the Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha was leading in many areas and looks likely to be the new numero uno in the Bengal hill districts.
All the counting venues are manned by armed state police personnel and central forces, with prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPC being imposed outside the venue to avoid any untoward incidents. There are a total of 767 strong rooms across 22 districts.
Large crowds of supporters of various candidates gathered at various centres to ensure that counting was conducted correctly.
In various districts, TMC supporters celebrated their victory by dancing and smearing each other with green colour, the party's chosen colour.
As initial trends started pouring in, a war of words broke out between the TMC and the BJP, with the latter accusing the ruling party of "making last desperate attempts to loot votes by blocking opposition agents from entering counting centres."
"TMC goons are making desperate attempts to steal the elections by obstructing the counting agents and candidates of the BJP and other opposition political parties from entering counting centres. They are being restricted from going towards the venue, and bombs are being hurled to intimidate counting agents," leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, said.
Refuting the allegations, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said, "Sensing defeat, they are making baseless allegations."
"Rejected by people and sensing humiliating defeat, this is BJP's last attempt to come up with lame excuses to make up for its own organisational failures," he said.
"We salute the people that despite all these (hurdles), they have supported the Left Front candidates," CPI-M state secretary Mohd Salim said.
The CPI-M leader alleged that the ruling party was misusing the police and administration to get back to power in the panchayats.
ISF MLA Nawshad Siddique who is leading his newly formed party told PTI, "Whatever chance the people have got to exercise their franchise despite violence and intimidation, they have expressed their opinion against the ruling party."
He added that the "myth that a certain community is a vote bank has been proven wrong".
A total of 5.67 crore people living in the state's rural areas were eligible to decide the fate of 2.06 lakh candidates in 73,887 seats of the three-tier-panchayat system.
Unlike earlier elections, the Opposition had fielded candidates in more than 90 per cent of seats, unlike in 2018 rural polls, when the ruling TMC had won 34 per cent of the seats uncontested.
In the 2018 rural polls, the ruling TMC had emerged victorious in 90 per cent of the panchayat seats and all the 22 zilla parishads. The elections were marred by widespread violence, with the Opposition alleging they were prevented from filing nominations in several seats.
