Kolkata, June 23 (IANS) The initial trend of results during counting of votes on Monday for the June 19 bypoll in West Bengal has changed.

While Trinamool Congress candidate Alifa Ahmed is still leading by 4,549 votes, the BJP candidate Ashish Ghosh has bounced back to the second position pitting the Left Front-supported Congress candidate Kabil Uddin Shaikh in the third position.

After the first round of counting of votes, the Congress candidate was in the second position, with the BJP candidate in the third position.

After the second round of counting, the total votes secured by Ahmed stood at 8,725, followed by Ghosh at 4,176 and Shaikh at 3,282 votes.

Kaliganj is a minority-dominated constituency with Muslim voters constituting nearly 60 per cent of the total voters there.

At the time, the report was filed the process of counting postal ballots had been completed and counting had started for the votes polled through electronic voting machines.

The counting started on Monday at 8 a.m. at the counting centre at Panighata High School and the process started with the counting of the postal ballots.

The counting is being conducted under a blanket three-tier security cover.

There are only Central Armed Police Forces personnel in the innermost security circle, which are within the two counting halls.

Each counting hall has eight counting tables.

The counting process is expected to be completed and results announced by 12.30 p.m. on Monday. There will be a total of 23 rounds of counting.

Bypolls for the Kaliganj Assembly constituency in West Bengal were necessitated following the sudden demise of its erstwhile Trinamool Congress legislator Nasiruddin Ahmed in February this year at the age of 70.

Trinamool Congress candidate Alifa Ahmed is his daughter.

In the 2021 state Assembly polls, Nasiruddin Ahmed was elected from Kaliganj by a margin of 45,987 votes defeating BJP’s Abhijit Ghosh.

–IANS

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