Kolkata: Campaigning for three Lok Sabha seats in Bengal — Darjeeling, Raiganj and Balurghat — going to polls in the second phase on April 26 came to an end on Wednesday.
A total of 51,17,955 voters — 26,07,389 men, 25,10,356 women and 210 third-gender — are eligible to exercise their franchise in 5,298 polling stations.
Out of the 47 candidates contesting the election in this phase, three are women.
The second phase of polls would be witnessing a contest between political heavyweights in Balurghat, as the BJP’s state president and sitting MP Sukanta Majumdar would take on state minister Biplab Mitra.
There are a total of 13 candidates contesting from the Balurghat constituency.
Altogether 14 candidates, including sitting MP Raju Bista, are contesting from the Darjeeling seat. The TMC has fielded former bureaucrat Gopal Lama while the Congress nominated Munish Tamang.
Interestingly, protesting against Bista’s nomination, BJP MLA from Kurseong, Bishnu Pada Sharma, is also contesting from the Darjeeling seat as an independent candidate.
There are 20 candidates, including TMC’s Krishna Kalyani, Ali Imran Ramz aka Victor for the Congress and Kartick Chandra Paul for the BJP.
Heavyweights like PM Modi, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, TMC national general secretary and MP Abhishek Banerjee among others were seen campaigning for their respective party
candidates.With Agency inputs