Our Correspondents / agencies
Counting of votes for the 17th Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh is underway amidst tight security.
Trends are available from all the 542 Lok Sabha constituencies. NDA is leading in 327, UPA 104 and others __111 _. BJP alone is leading in _294_ seats and Congress 49. DMK 22, JDU 16, Shiv Sena 20, YSR Congress 25, TRS 8, BSP 11, SP 8, Trinamool Congress 23, Biju Janata Dal 14 and others 5.
Prominent candidates who are leading include Senior BJP leader and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Party Chief Amit Shah, Union Ministers Smriti Irani and Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Hansraj Ahir, Poonam Mahajan and UPA Chairperson, Sonia Gandhi.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi is leading in Varanasi after the first round of counting, Party Chief Amit Shah is ahead in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, Rajnath Singh in Lucknow, Smriti Irani in Amethi, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi in Raebareli, Congress President Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad in Kerala and Shashi Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram.
Former Maharashtra Chief Minister and Congress candidate Ashok Chavhan is trailing in Nanded and party candidate Shailja Kumari in Ambala seat in Haryana.
In Uttar Pradesh, Union Ministers Sanjeev Kumar Balyan is leading in Muzaffar Nagar, V K Singh in Ghaziabad, Mahesh Sharma in Gautam Buddha Nagar, Santosh Kumar Gangwar in Bareilly, Manoj Sinha in Ghazipur, Anupriya Patel in Mirzapur, Niranjan Jyoti in Fatehpur, Maneka Gandhi in Sultanpur, Party leader Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi in Kanpur, State Cabinet Minister Reeta Bahuguna Joshi in Allahabad, Feroze Varun Gandhi in Pilibhit, Film Actor Hema Malini in Mathura and Jagdambika Pal in Dumaria Ganj. The State Congress Chief Raj Babbar is ahead in Fatehpur Sikri, Senior Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav in Mainpuri, Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav in Azam Garh and Dimple Yadav in Kannauj. Party candidate Poonam Sinha is trailing in Lucknow.
In Uttarakhand, BJP is leading in all the five seats. They include Union Minister Ajay Tamta, State BJP Chief Ajay Bhatt, Udham Singh Nagar and Ramesh Pokhrial Nishank.
In Gujarat, BJP is leading in all the 26 seats in the state as per the available trends. The party is also leading in all the 7 Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. Prominent among them are former cricketer Gautam Gambhir is leading in East Delhi, State BJP President Manoj Tewari in North East Delhi, Union Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan in Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha seats.
In Goa, BJP candidate and Union Minister Shripad Naik is leading in the North Goa and Congress leader Francisco Sardinha in South Goa constituency.
In Punjab, BJP’s Sunny Deol is leading from Gurdaspur parliamentary constituency, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Sukhbir Singh Badal in Firozpur and Sitting MP and AAP candidate Bhagwant Mann in Sangrur.
In West Bengal, trends are available from almost all the 42 constituencies. All India Trinamool Congress is leading in 25, BJP in 15 and Congress in one. Prominent leading candidates are Union Ministers Babul Supriyo Baral in Asansol and S.S. Ahluwalia in Burdwan-Durgapur and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of Congress Baharampur. Trinamool leaders who are marching ahead include Satabdi Ray, Saugata Ray and Sudeep Bandopadhyay. In Midnipur constituency, State BJP chief Dilip Ghosh has taken a marginal lead over Manas Ranjan Bhunia of All India Trinamool Congress candidate.
After the first round of counting from Hamir Pur Parliamentary constituency in Himachal Pradesh BJP’s Anurag Thakur is leading.
In Sikkim, Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM) and Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) are neck and neck. In Nagaland also it is a close contest between Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party and Indian National Congress.
In Meghalaya, as per the latest trends, the National People’s Party, NPP’s Agatha Sangma is leading over her Congres rival Mukul Sangma in Tura.
In Jammu & Kashmir, National Conference leader Farooq Abdulla is leading in Srinagar and BJP candidates Dr. Jitendra Singh in Udhampur and Jugal Kishore in Jammu.
In Tamil Nadu, the UPA consisting of the DMK, Congress and the Left are having a phenomenal lead whereas in the Assembly bye-polls, the ruling AIADMK and main opposition DMK are racing neck and neck. The UPA is leading in 38 out of 38 seats while AIADMK and the PMK of the NDA are leading in one seat each. Notable among the candidates who are leading include Ms Kanimozhi of DMK, state BJP President Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan, Former Union Ministers from the DMK, TR Baalu, Dayanidhi Maran, A Raja and SS Palanimanickam. Union Minister and BJP candidate in Kanyakumari seat Mr Pon Radhakrishnan is trailing. Former Union Minister and PMK candidate in Dharmapuri Dr Anbumani Ramadoss is leading against his DMK opponent.
In Telangana, TRS is leading at Karimnagar, Mahabubabad, Malkajgiri, Nagarkurnool, Nalgonda, Warangal, Zahirabad and Medak while BJP is ahead at Adilabad.
In Chhattisgarh, Vijay Bhagel of BJP in Durg constituency and Jyotsna Charandas Mahant of Congress in Korba constituency are leading.
In Madhya Pradesh, BJP leaders Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur is leading in Bhopal and Nandkumar Singh Chouhan in Khandwa constituency.
In Andaman & Nicobar islands BJP is leading in the lone seat.
In Kerala, CPIM leading at Vadakara, Kasaragod, Alappuzha and Kozhikode. IUML is ahead at Malappuram and Ponnani. While BJP is leading at Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram and Congress is ahead at Idukki.
In Tamil Nadu, DMK is leading at Erode, Cuddalore, Tenkasi and Tirunelveli. Congress is leading at Virudhunagar.
In Karnataka, BJP is leading at Bangalore North, Bangalore Central, Bangalore South, Bellary, Bidar, Bijapur, Chamarajanagar, Chikballapur, Chitradurga, Dakshina Kannada, Davanagere, Dharwad, Haveri, Uttara Kannada and Koppal. JD(S) is leading at Hassan and Tumkur. Congress is leading in Puducherry.
Out of the total 543 Parliamentary seats, elections were held in 542 constituencies. Over eight thousand candidates are in the fray. The elections to the Vellore constituency in Tamil Nadu was cancelled on the grounds of excessive use of money power.
The results are expected by late evening due to tallying of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips, VVPAT with the Electronic Voting Machines. This is the first time that in General Elections results of voting machines will be matched with slips generated by paper trail machines.
The exercise is taking place in five polling stations selected randomly per Assembly segment.
In Odisha, simultaneous counting of votes for the elections to 21 Lok Sabha and 146 Assembly seats are taking place at 63 centres in 22 districts. Ruling BJD is leading 16 assembly seats and BJP in 5. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is leading in Bijapur.
In Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections YSRCP is leading in 30 seats and TDP is leading SIX as per latest trends.
A 24-hour EVM Control Room has been set up at Nirvachan Sadan in New Delhi to monitor complaints related to polled EVMs. The Control Room contact number is 011-23052123.