The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has breached Bengal as it crossed the majority mark in the state, as per the latest trends on Monday, though counting of votes for the 2026 Assembly Elections has slowed down in several constituencies. The saffron party is set to make history by handing over a major defeat to Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) and winning the state for the first time.

Though several rounds of counting of votes are yet to happen, the saffron party, at 3 PM, was leading in at least 195 seats, way ahead of 148, the magic number to win the election to the 294-member Legislative Assembly. TMC was ahead in 93 seats.

Leader of Opposition in the state and BJP candidate from Nandigram and Bhabanipur, Suvendu Adhikari, credited the “educated Hindu people” and said they had rejected Mamata Banerjee. BJP, he said, is forming the government with a “clear mandate”.

Counting of votes is going on across 77 centres in the state, with elaborate security arrangements and a charged political atmosphere setting the stage for the declaration of results in 293 of the 294-seat House.

The Election Commission countermanded polls in the entire Falta constituency in South 24 Parganas district, citing “severe electoral offences and subversion of the democratic process during polling in a large number of polling stations”. The fresh poll in that seat and the counting will take place on May 21 and May 24, respectively.

The two-phase polls in the state ended on April 29, with what the election watchdog said was the state’s highest-ever voter turnout of 92.47 per cent since Independence. Repolling in 15 booths in South 24 Parganas concluded on Saturday, with around 87 per cent turnout recorded.

What did exit polls predict for West Bengal?

The majority of the exit polls have predicted a neck-and-neck battle between the ruling TMC and the opposition BJP, but are hinting at the possibility of the end of the 15-year-long Mamata Banerjee-led regime and the beginning of saffron rule in the state.

According to the exit poll survey of P-MARQ, while the BJP is expected to win between 150 and 175 Assembly constituencies, the same survey is showing the Trinamool Congress tally between 118 and 138, and others, including Congress and the Left Front–All India Secular Front alliance, between two and six. Matrize predicted that the BJP is winning the Bengal Assembly with 146-161 seats and the TMC is projected to win 125 to 140 seats.