AINRC takes Thattanchavady as Bengal and Tamil Nadu bypoll counts continue

Ashok Anand of the All India NR Congress won the Thattanchavady bypoll in Puducherry on Friday, the first result called in a six-seat round of assembly by-elections. He beat the Congress candidate, E. Vinayagam, by 8,482 votes. Counting was still open at midday in Nandigram and Rejinagar in West Bengal, Madurantakam and Dharapuram in Tamil Nadu, and Nagaon in Assam.

Thattanchavady is the seat that can be written down. Anand is an ally of the National Democratic Alliance. Early wires put his margin above 8,000 and, in one desk's shorthand, above 13,000 votes in his own tally. The figure that matches a named opponent and a margin is 8,482 over Vinayagam. Puducherry's assembly is small enough that one seat moves the arithmetic of the house. It does not move a national story on its own. It is the result that is finished.

West Bengal is the count with the larger stake. Nandigram and Rejinagar are the first electoral test of the Bharatiya Janata Party government led by Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, which ended the Trinamool Congress's 15 years in power. Nandigram recorded 80.89 percent turnout. Rejinagar recorded 80.08 percent. Both contests drew allegations of intimidation, irregularity and clashes. Congress asked for a repoll. The Election Commission described polling as largely peaceful. On Friday morning BJP candidates Hasirani Rath in Nandigram and Shankharavh Sarkar in Rejinagar were reported in early leads. A lead at the first rounds is not a declaration. In a Bengal count, booths from different pockets arrive at different speeds, and a lead can reverse when a pocket comes in.

Tamil Nadu is a different kind of test. Madurantakam and Dharapuram are being read for Vijay's Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam, the party built out of his film career and fighting its first serious assembly bypolls. Early rounds had TVK candidates ahead in both seats, and AIADMK was also reported leading in Dharapuram in one desk's update. Two leads from two desks, on the same seat, are a reason to wait. What is firm is that TVK is on the board in both constituencies, which it could not say at the last general round because the party did not exist in that form.

Assam's Nagaon count is the sixth seat. BJP's candidate was reported ahead of the All India United Democratic Front's Badruddin Ajmal in early rounds. Ajmal's party has treated Nagaon as home ground for years. A BJP lead there, if it holds, is a local shift, not a state result. Assam's government is already BJP. The bypoll asks whether that hold reaches a seat the party has found difficult.

The six seats fell vacant for different reasons, and the Commission has not treated them as one election. They share a day of counting and a political class that wants a national sentence out of them. The honest sentence at midday is smaller. Puducherry has a winner, Anand, by 8,482 votes. Bengal has two high turnouts and two early BJP leads under a new chief minister. Tamil Nadu has TVK in the early rounds of both seats. Assam has a lead against Ajmal that has not been declared. The rest is the afternoon's count.