78.25% turn out to vote in Bengal phase-V

Altogether 349 candidates, including 43 women, tried their luck in Saturday’s election across three districts — Kolkata South, South 24 Parganas and Hooghly.

About 1.2 crore voters were eligible to cast their votes at over 14,500 polling booths from 7 am to 6 pm. The centre of attraction in this phase is Bhowanipore constituency where West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is pitted against former Union minister Deepa Das Munshi of the Congress.

There was not a single complaint of booth jamming, intimidation of voters or false voting in Saturday’s election.

Sunil Kumar Gupta, Chief Electoral Officer said the total polling percentage was 78.25 per cent. In South 24 Parganas, it was 79.69 per cent followed by 78.98 per cent in Hooghly and 63.10 per cent in Kolkata South till 5 pm. Gupta said the poll percentage will go up as polling took place till 6 pm and in some booths it continued till 7 pm because of heavy turnout of voters in the dying hour.

There were 53 constituencies where election was held on Saturday. There were 349 candidates including heavyweights like Mamata Banerjee, Manish Gupta, Subrata Mukherjee, Sovan Chatterjee, Partha Chatterjee, Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, Aroop Biswas, Javed Khan, Biman Banerjee along with a host of others. So far, election has been held in 269 constituencies.

Gupta said till 6 pm 2,970 complaints were received by the Commission. Out of this, 2,846 complaints were disposed of and the rest were looked into. He said the Commission received complaints that CPI(M) polling agents were not allowed to sit in Sonarpur in four booths but when police and QRT personnel reached the spot they found all the polling agents were present inside the booths. 

Similar complaints were received from Bhangar and Haripal seats in Hooghly. 

The allegations were made that CPI(M) polling agents were beaten up by TMC workers. On inquiry, it was found that the complaints were false. The Commission did not get a single person with arms loitering near polling stations in Hooghly which was telecast by some vernacular news channel in the morning. The Commission also did not find any person with injuries during a clash between CPI(M) and TMC workers as alleged by CPI(M) in Metiabruz.

Two presiding officers were removed from poll duty in Tarakeshwar (Booth 65) and Arambagh (Booth 271) after they were found helping voters exercise their franchise. FIRs have been lodged against them.

Satarup Ghosh, CPI(M) candidate from Kasba, was caught in a verbal duel with Central Forces’ personnel and polling officers in a booth in Kasba. However, the matter was pacified by CPI(M) workers and he was taken away.

Anuj Sharma, IG (law and order) said altogether 186 people were arrested on Saturday. Out of which 9 were arrested under specific sections while the remaining 177 people were arrested on preventive ground. Ninety EVMs were replaced during mock poll and 102 EVMs were replaced during polling.

All eyes were at Bhowanipore Assembly seat where Mamata Banerjee was pitted against Deepa Das Munshi of Congress and Chandra Bose of BJP. The voters stood in long queues and there was not a single incident of violence. 

Deepa Das Munshi alleged that in some booths TMC workers were not allowing Congress polling agents to stay in the booths. On investigation, this allegation was found to be false.

In South 24 Parganas, the election became a festival. Voters in the villages were found to stand in queues donning new attires. This was the biggest achievement of the TMC to bring back the confidence of people on the administration.