TMC wins 22 LS seats, BJP makes deep inroads in Bengal

The ruling TMC has won 22 out of 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal.

The Mamata Banerjee-led party had won 34 parliamentary seats in the state in the 2014 General Elections.

BJP has made huge strides in West Bengal by garnering 18 seats, 16 more than it had won in the 2014 polls, thereby breaching the once Left-ruled bastion and now the TMC citadel.

Congress, on the other hand, managed to win just two seats while Left parties drew a blank.

From BJP, the winners were -- Babul Supriyo (Asansol), Arjun Singh (Barrackpore), SS Ahluwalia (Burdwan-Durgapur), Locket Chatterjee (Hooghly) and Dilip Ghosh (Medinipur).

Congress' Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury defeated TMC's Apurba Sarkar by 80,696 votes.

Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee (TMC) retained his Diamond Harbour seat, defeating his BJP rival Nilanjan Roy by 3,20,594 votes.

Other TMC candidates who won from their respective seats were Sougata Roy (Dum Dum), Satabdi Roy (Birbhum), Sunil Kumar Mondal (Bardhaman Purba), Mimi Chakraborty (Jadavpur) and Sudip Bandyopadhyay (Kolkata North).

West Bengal was the main focus in this year's general elections as BJP and TMC workers clashed with each other. The electioneering too was rhetoric with both the parties launching personal attacks against each other.

The Election Commission had curtailed campaigning by a day ahead of the May 19 elections in nine constituencies in the state after violence marred BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata on May 14.

A bust of iconic social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was vandalized at a college named after him.

West Bengal went to polls in all seven phases from April 11 to May 19.

During the campaigning, Chief Minister Banerjee had repeatedly attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him as "expiry babu" and "liar."

BJP had hit back at Banerjee, accusing her of "murdering" democracy in the state. The Prime Minister had dubbed the TMC supremo as "speed breaker Didi" for allegedly stalling development.

-ANI