Kolkata, June 2 (IANS) The Trinamool Congress was leading over the ruling Left Front in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Wednesday as authorities counted votes polled in Sunday’s civic elections.
The Trinamool Congress candidates were ahead in 53 seats, and the Left Front in 31 seats, while the Congress and the BJP led in three and one seat respectively in trends available for 88 seats in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. The Left Front was running it since 2005.
In the counting of votes for 80 municipalities spread across the state, the Left Front retained Bally in Hooghly district, and Toofanganj and Dinhata in Cooch Behar district in northern West Bengal.
The Congress retained the Katwa Municipality in Burdwan district.
More than 70 percent of the voters had exercised their franchise in the polls, held two days after the Gyaneshwari Express rail disaster that claimed 148 lives in West Midnapore district.
The elections were held a year after the Lok Sabha polls that saw the Trinamool Congress-Congress combine along with the Socialist Unity Centre of India decimate the ruling Left Front.
But the political equations have substantially changed this time round.
A striking feature of these elections was the failure of the Trinamool Congress and the Congress to clinch a seat-sharing deal.
Both parties contested the polls by themselves in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and almost all the municipalities spread across the state.
