TMC leading in 22, BJP in 5, Cong in 2 seats in Bengal; Sukanta Majumdar and Dilip Ghosh trailing

Kolkata: The TMC surged ahead of its rivals as it was leading in 22 seats, whereas the BJP was leading in five and the Congress in two seat after the initial round of counting, the Election Commission website said.

TMC candidate and sitting MP Abhishek Banerjee is leading in the Diamond Harbour constituency over his nearest rival BJP's Abhijit Das by a margin of 32,507 votes.

TMC's Hooghly candidate Rachana Banerjee was leading after counting postal ballots over her nearest BJP rival and sitting MP Locket Chatterjee.

TMC candidate and two-time MP Asit Mal was leading from Bolpur over her nearest rival BJP's Piya Saha by 6,010 votes.

In Malda Dakshin, Congress candidate Isha Khan Choudhury was leading by 11,733 votes over his nearest BJP rival Sreerupa Mitra Chowdhury.

In Jadavpur, TMC's Sayani Ghosh was leading by 8,048 votes over her nearest BJP rival Anirban Ganguly.

In Malda Uttar, sitting MP and BJP candidate Khagen Murmu was leading by a margin of 11,119 votes over his nearest rival TMC's Prasun Banerjee.

In Cooch Behar, BJP candidate and sitting MP Nisiht Pramanik was trailing by a margin of 5,529 votes against his TMC candidate Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia.

Heavyweight BJP candidate and state president Sukanta Majumdar was trailing in West Bengal's Balurghat seat over his nearest rival TMC's Biplab Mitra by 4,855 votes, as per the EC website.

BJP candidate S S Ahluwalia was leading in West Bengal's Asansol seat over his nearest rival TMC's Shatrughan Sinha by 6,956 votes.

TMC candidate Arup Chakraborty was ahead of BJP candidate and sitting MP Subhas Sarkar in Bankura Lok Sabha constituency by 3765 votes.

TMC candidate and party's Lok Sabha leader Sudip Bandopadhyay, was leading by 98 votes from the Kolkata North seat over his nearest BJP rival BJP rival Tapas Roy.

In the Bardhaman-Durgapur seat, TMC candidate Kirti Azad was leading by 6,526 votes over his nearest BJP rival Dilip Ghosh.

In Kolkata's south seat, TMC candidate Mala Roy was leading over her nearest rival of the CPI (M) Saira Shah Halim by a margin of 12,491 votes.

Counting of votes for 42 Lok Sabha constituencies began at 8 am.