AGARTALA, July 19 (TIWN): The counting of panchayat votes continued today with brisk pace with results of 2,536 gram panchayat seats declared out of 5,129. CPI (M) swept the gram panchayats with 2,220 of the declared seats secured in its kitty.

Congress maintained a safe second position with victory in 148 seats out of the declared ones. Trinamool Congress party secured 58, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured 41 seats, Forward Block secured 5, RSP got 11, INPT ended with 1 seat and thirteen gram panchayat seats went to independent candidates, State Election Commission secretary Tamal Majumder said here today.

Asked about status of counting in panchayat samity seats, the official said that out of 381 panchayat samity seats that went to polls across the state on July 15, results of 219 were declared. 214 out of them went to CPI (M), 3 were bagged by CPI and two seats went to Congress candidates. Zilla Parishad was so far a clean sweep for CPI (M) with 62 seats secured by candidates of the party out of 63 declared so far.

A total of 114 Zilla Parishad seats went to polls across the state in the current three-tier panchayat election process. No major incidents of violence was reported from anywhere in the state till 1 PM this afternoon. Counting is expected to continue till late evening, State Election Commission secretary Majumder said.