17 May, 17:25 (IST)

The ruling Trinamool Congress clean sweeps West Bengal panchayat polls. The party wins most of the Gram Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti seats and Zila Parishad seats. The voting for 31,802 Gram Panchayat seats, 6,123 Panchayat Samiti seats and 621 Zilla Parishad seats were held yesterday.

17 May, 15:46 (IST)

Ruling party, TMC wins the Purba Bardhaman Zilla Parishad elections, earlier, the party was also declared a winner in Purdha Bardhaman panchayat samiti polls.  TMC is maintaining a very healthy lead in West Bengal Gram Panchayat Polls 2018.

17 May, 14:46 (IST)

Security personnel lathi charge TMC and BJP workers who clashed outside a counting centre in Birbhum. Meanwhile, TMC is maintaining a massive lead in Gram Panchayat, Zila Parishad & Panchayat Samiti seats of all the districts of West Bengal where the elections were held.
Watch the video of TMC & BJP workers clashing & security person needed to resort on lathi charge -

17 May, 14:33 (IST)

The counting of votes in zilla parishad is still awaited. Out of the 825 zilla parishad seats to be contested, the TMC had won 203 without contest.

17 May, 13:09 (IST)

TMC is ahead in Gram Panchayat, Zila Parishad & Panchayat Samiti Polls with massive leads in all the districts of West Bengal. TMC workers have already started celebrating the landslide victory. 

17 May, 11:40 (IST)

West Bengal Gram Panchayat Election Results Latest Update: TMC is Leading in 4,000+, BJP - 350+, Left - 300+, Congress 150+, Others - 50+. Results for Zilla Parishad & Panchayat Samiti seats are awaited.

17 May, 10:52 (IST)

West Bengal Gram Panchayat Election Results: TMC leading in more than 1,500 seats, followed by BJP who is leading in around 200 seats. Left is leading in more than 100 seats and Congress is leading in just 50 seats.

17 May, 10:17 (IST)

TMC is leading in all 20 districts as per the trends coming in for Gram Panchayat Polls in West Bengal.
Below are the latest party-wise district wise results by ABP Ananda -

17 May, 09:25 (IST)

TMC Takes Early Leads in Gram Panchayat Polls while results are awaited For Zilla Parishad & Panchayat Samiti Seats. TMC is the only party in Purba Bardhaman and Purba Medinipur districts to open the account. BJP, Left & Congress are yet to find the first lead.

17 May, 09:03 (IST)

ABP Ananda is bringing the results live from West Bengal. The first results of Zilla Parishad, Panchayat Samiti & Gram Panchayat elections are still awaited.
Here is the Live streaming of news in Bengali from ABP Ananda -

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Kolkata, May 17: The results of West Bengal panchayat polls 2018 will be declared by the State Election Commission (SEC) today. The counting of votes were scheduled to begin at 7 am. Stay tuned here for the live updates on trends and winners emerging from the 622 seats of 17 zilla parishads, 6,157 seats in 341 panchayat samiti seats, besides 31,827 seats in 3,385 gram panchayats.

Elections to the rural bodies were conducted by the SEC on Monday. The polling was marred with violence as 14 deaths were reported. The Opposition decried the SEC and state police, accusing it of being hand-in-glove with the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC).

Ahead of the elections, the Opposition - comprising of the BJP, Congress and CPM-led Left Front - petitioned before the Supreme Court, followed by the Calcutta High Court, seeking deferment of the polls.

The petitioners alleged the ruling party workers used mass-scale violence and intimidatory tactics to prevent their candidates from filing the nominations.

To support their argument, they cited the victory of TMC in 34 per cent of the seats -- 203 of the 825 zilla parishads, 16,814 gram panchayat seats and 3,059 panchayat samiti seats -- without a contest.

The courts, while restraining the SEC from declaring the results from those seats where no elections could be held due to no Opposition candidate, denied the appeal to countermand the polls throughout the state.

Results of West Bengal Panchayat Elections of 2008 & 2013

2008

2013

PRI body

Total

Left Front

Congress

TMC

Total

Left Front

Congress

TMC

Gram Panchayats

41504

21780 (52.47)

6839 (16.47)

9379 (22.59)

48800

15614 (31.99)

5495 (11.26)

25175 (51.58)

Panchayat Samiti

8800

4894 (55.61)

1446 (16.43)

2019 (22.94)

9240

2829 (30.61)

918 (9.93)

5306 (57.42)

Zilla Parishad

749

514 (68.62)

99 (13.21)

120 (16.02)

825

213 (25.81)

77 (9.33)

531 (64.36)

Source: West Bengal State Election Commission, newspapers

Pollsters claim that although the trail of violence involved in Bengal rural polls is not a new phenomenon, the "muscle power" used in this round of elections has escalated to unprecedented levels.

While the TMC is expected to overwhelmingly emerge victorious in the rural elections, the results remain intriguing to see what remains left of the Left Front, along with the much-touted inroads made by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state.