Re-poll ordered in Asansol, Bidhannagar booths

The West Bengal State Election Commission (SEC) has ordered a re-poll in nine polling booths in Bidhannagar (Salt Lake) in North 24-Parganas and in two booths in theAsansol civic body in Burdwan. 

There will be no re-poll in Bally in Howrah. The re-poll will be held on Friday, October 9 from 7 am to 5 pm. 

The votes polled during the re-poll and the actual polls held on October 3 will be counted together on October 10 from 8 am onwards.

West Bengal’s acting state election commissioner Alapan Bandyopadhyay announced the decision to hold the re-poll at a press conference on Thursday afternoon. 

“We have taken the re-poll decision after examining all complaints and reports of the district election officers and the election observers in their presence in a marathon exercise since this morning. The complaints and reports were tallied with some video footage that we had received from news channels,” Bandyopadhyay said.

Explaining the reason behind not ordering a re-poll in any booths in Bally, he said, “Although we had received some complaints from Bally, those could not be verified neither from the official reports nor the video footage,” he said. 

The move comes following allegations of widespread rigging and intimidation of voters during the civic polls held October 3. 

The Opposition parties had demanded scrapping the polls altogether and ordering a fresh poll.