Trinamool alliance to sweep Bengal: Survey

According to the survey, the Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance will get two-third majority.

New Delhi: The Trinamool Congress-led alliance will oust -- with a big margin -- the Left Front which has ruled West Bengal for 34 continuous years, a Headlines Today-ORG post-poll survey predicted Tuesday.

According to the survey, the Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance will get two-third majority, winning 210 to 220 seats out of a total 294 seats in the state assembly.

The survey predicts just 65 to 70 seats for the Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Front.

The survey gives 10 to 15 seats to independents and other parties.

The counting for the six-phased polls, which ended Tuesday, will take place on May 13.

Earlier in the day, defying a Maoist boycott and braving the scorching sun, over 83 percent of the 26 lakh-plus electorate voted amid massive security deployment in the sixth and final phase of the West Bengal assembly elections. Voting was peaceful.

Voters, many of them tribals living in the jungle areas, lined up in long queues in front of booths from 7am when the polling started and by 3pm, the scheduled time for the polls to get over, 83.48 percent of votes were cast, according to officials.

On Tuesday, polling was held in 14 constituencies of three districts - West Midnapore (7), Purulia (4) and Bankura (3) - considered the hotbed of Maoist activities.

Tuesday`s polling brought to an end the staggered six-phase election for the 294-member assembly that began April 18 and covered around 70,000 polling booths spread across 19 districts over 88,752 sq km. The total electorate was over 56 million.

PTI

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