The Trinamool Congress was headed for victory in West Bengal on Friday, with former Marxist leader and Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee saying the "opposition was coming to power".
Early trends from the vote count for the 294-member Assembly put the Trinamool-Congress combine ahead in 14 seats and the ruling Left Front led in 12. After the first round of counting, chief minister and Left Front spearhead Buddhadeb Bhattacharya was trailing by a narrow margin against Trinammol candidate Manish Gupta. The Bharatiya Janata Party was ahead in one seat. If the Trinamool wins, as has been widely expected, it will mark the end of 34 years of Left Front rule.