The ongoing trend shows, Ruling parties were poised to return to power in three states with Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress striding way ahead of the BJP in West Bengal while the BJP was comfortably ahead in Assam as was the LDF in Kerala.

As votes were counted for the assembly polls in four states and one union territory with strict Covid protocols in place, trends indicated that Tamil Nadu’s ruling AIADMK could cede power to arch-rival DMK. In Puducherry, the AINRC-led NDA was headed towards power.

The TMC was ahead in 202 of the 292 seats, way over the halfway mark of 147, leaving the BJP trailing far behind in 77 seats. It was a long way from the three seats in the last elections for the party, which fielded its top leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, but power was still elusive - if the trends translated into results.

The BJP seemed to have reason to smile in Assam where the ruling NDA was ahead of the Congress-led Grand Alliance with leads in 79 of 126 seats. BJP candidates were leading in 62 seats, while its ally AGP in 10 and the UPPL in seven.

In southern Kerala, Left-led alliance LDF was poised for another term in power, the first time in four decades that the same grouping could form the government for the second consecutive time. The two main constituents of the LDF, the CPI(M) and the CPI, were together leading in 71 seats, the magic number for power in the 140-member assembly. In good news for the BJP, it was ahead in three seats in Kerala and four in Tamil Nadu, its efforts to make an electoral dent in the two southern states bearing fruit.

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