Kolkata, February 1: The counting of votes for Noapara Assembly Seat and Uluberia Lok Sabha Constituency started on Thursday morning amid tight security. West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) took over the Congress to win the Noapara Assembly seat. TMC candidate, Sunil Singh won by a margin of 63,018 votes in Noapara. Reports by Hindustan Times says, he won 1,11,729 votes which is well over the 50% mark.  As per reports, the Trinamool candidate was leading by more than 60,000 votes in Uluberia.  West Bengal’s Uluberia saw a turnout of 76.7 percent, while 75.3 percent of voters cast their votes in Noapara.

In Thursday's vote count, the Bharatiya Janata Party continued to emerge as the Trinamool's main challenger by finishing second in Noapara. Meanwhile, the CPI-M candidate took the third spot in Noapara. In a first, the polls saw the use of EVM machines with photos of candidates on them.

The bye-elections to the two constituencies were necessitated following the death of incumbent lawmakers -- Noapara MLA Madhusudan Ghosh and Uluberia MP Sultan Ahmed. The former, a Congress veteran, passed away at the age of 79 on August 18 last year, following a prolonged illness. Whereas, Ahmed, a senior TMC leader, died on September 4 after suffering a cardiac arrest.

As per initial trends, Trinamool's Sunil Singh won by more than 63,000 votes over his nearest rival, Sandip Banerjee of the BJP in Noapara while in Uluberia, Trinamool's Sajda Ahamed, widow of MP Sultan Ahmed, was leading by more than 68,000 votes over Anupam Mallik of the BJP.  To recall, TMC’s Sultan Ahmed won the Uluberia seat by a margin of 98,936 votes in 2009 elections while TMC candidate Manju Bose won the Noapara Assembly constituency in 2011. Five years later, the seat was won by Madhusudan Ghose of Congress with support from the Left.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 01, 2018 11:53 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).