LF holds on to West Bengal

The ruling Left Front appears set to maintain its dominant position in West Bengal establishing leads in 19 out of 26 seats trends for which were available at 1100 IST.

Among the Left Front constituents, CPI-M candidates are ahead in 15 seats while those of Forward Bloc are leading in two and CPI and RSP are ahead in one seat each. Prominent LF candidates, who established leads in early rounds, were Somnath Chatterjee in Bolpur, Gurudas Dasgupta in Panskura.

Nationalist Trinamool Congress candidatesm including NTC chief Mamata Banerjee, were leading in three seats while Congress candidates were leading in four, included Jangipur where the candidate if PCC president Pranab Mukherjee and Malda where the candidate is A B A Gani Khan Choudhury.

But deputy leader of the Congress in the dissolved Lok Sabha Priyaranjan Dasmunshi is trailing his CPI-M rival Minati Ghosh in Raiganj in north Bengal.