Central Forces in 98.8% booths for phase four

Kolkata: Central Forces will be deployed in 98.8 percent of the booths in the fourth phase of the seven phase Lok Sabha elections, where poll will be held in eight constituencies spreading over five districts on Monday.

Poll will be held in Berhampur (Murshidabad), Krishnanagar, Ranaghat (Nadia), Burdwan East, Burdwan-Durgapur, Asansol (Burdwan West) and Bolpur and Birbhum (Birbhum). Over one crore voters will exercise their franchise on Monday.

The Election Commission of India has taken elaborate measures to ensure free and fair polls in the eight constituencies. Chief Election Commissioner Sudip Jain has recently held a video conference with the CEO and election observers and taken a stock of the situation.

561 companies of Central Forces will be deployed on Monday. There will be 88 Quick Response Teams under the Central Forces. In Asansol, there will be Central Forces in all booths along with Birbhum and Bolpur.

In Asansol, 87 companies of Central Forces will be deployed. There will be 15,277 polling booths spread over 9,803 premises. In Bolpur, there will be web casting facility in 300 booths. In Krishnanagar, there will be Central Force deployment in 97 percent booths.

It may be recalled that in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Trinamool had established its control over six of the eight seats. At Berhampur in Murshidabad and Asansol in Burdwan West, Adhir Chowdhury of Congress and Babul Supriyo of BJP had been elected.

Chowdhury is set to face his one-time aide Apurba Sarkar who recently joined Trinamool Congress in Monday's poll, while Babul Supriyo will face Moon Moon Sen, the Trinamool Congress MP who was elected from the Bankura Lok Sabha seat in 2014.

Political experts feel that in both the Berhampur and Asansol seats, there will be a tough fight for the winners of the 2014 election. If Trinamool Congress can win the Berhampur seat, it will be a major victory for Suvendu Adhikari

who is looking after Murshidabad district. In the Panchayat election held in 2018, Trinamool had bagged the Zilla Parishad.

In Krishnanagar, Trinamool has fielded Mahua Moitra, the party's MLA from Karimpur whereas in the Ranaghat (SC) seat, Trinamool has fielded Rupali Biswas, widow of Satyajit Biswas, the former Krishnagunj MLA who was murdered in February.

In Burdwan East and Burdwan Durgapur, Trinamool has retained two sitting MPs, namely Sunil Mondol and Mumtaz Sanghamita. In the Bolpur (SC) seat, the party has fielded Asit Mal while Satabdi Roy, the sitting MP, is contesting from the Birbhum seat.