Kolkata, May 4 (IANS) With just four rounds of counting still left, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is trailing in the Bhabanipur Assembly constituency in south Kolkata by 563 votes against Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari.

At Bhabanipur, there will be a total of 20 rounds of counting, and at the time of filing this report, counting had been completed for 16 rounds.

As per the official figures available from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, at the end of the 16th round of counting, Mamata Banerjee had secured 53,369 votes, while Suvendu Adhikari had secured 53,932 votes.

Adhikari has already been declared elected from his native Nandigram Assembly constituency in East Midnapore district, where he also contested this time apart from Bhabanipur.

After the 16th round of counting, Mamata Banerjee left the counting centre at Shakhawat Memorial Government Girls’ School in south Kolkata and returned to her residence at Kalighat in south Kolkata. Before leaving, she said that the verdict in West Bengal did not reflect the true mandate of the people.

To recall, in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections, Adhikari was elected from Nandigram, defeating Mamata Banerjee by a margin of a little less than 2,000 votes. Later, she was elected in a by-election from Bhabanipur and retained her position as Chief Minister for the third consecutive term.

At that time, Mamata Banerjee’s victory margin from Bhabanipur was a little less than 59,000 votes.

As per the latest trends available, the BJP has either won or is leading in 207 of the 293 Assembly constituencies for which counting was conducted on Monday, followed by the Trinamool Congress at 80, the Left Front-All India Secular Front (AISF) at two, the Congress at two, and others at two.

Several heavyweight members of the Mamata Banerjee-led Cabinet, including Minister of State for Finance (Independent Charge) Chandrima Bhattacharya, Women and Child Development and Social Welfare Minister Dr Shashi Panja, Fire Services Minister Sujit Bose, and Education Minister Bratya Basu, among others, have been defeated.

--IANS

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