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West Bengal panchayat polls ends with more violence in last phase

The  last phase of the panchayat polls in West Bengal on Thursday saw the death of a man during a clash between the Trinamool Congress and CPI(M) supporters in North Dinajpur district, taking the toll in poll-related violence to 21.

Police said Abdul Aziz was stabbed to death during the clash at Borobilla at Itahar when polling was on. Meanwhile, a 70-year-old voter died of heart attack at Phulbari, while he was waiting in a queue to cast his vote for the Dabgram-Phulbari gram panchayat in Jalpaiguri district.
Police said Mahendra Burman was rushed to nearby public health centre after he collapsed and was declared  dead by the doctors.

In another incident at Ranapur in North Dinajpur, 16 rival political party supporters were injured in a CRPF lathicharge in front of a polling booth under Itahar police station.
Voting was suspended in a booth under Durgapur gram panchayat after mischief mongers attempted to snatch ballot papers. Polling was also suspended at Kapusia block when some people snatched a ballot box and threw it into a river, police said.

In Raiganj block, police opened blank fire to disperse a mob which had gathered in front of the Alenga polling booth and attempted to snatch ballot papers.
Almost 65 lakh people were to cast their vote in four districts – North and South Dinajpur, Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri. The number of seats being contested is 8342.

What is of concern is, out of those 8,000 booths, about 5,423 were either sensitive or highly sensitive. This is probably because of the fact that votes are highly polarised in the four districts.
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