Cooch Behar, Alipurduar & Jalpaiguri: Bengal gears up for 1st phase elections

Siliguri/Kolkata: Bengal is all set for the first phase of the 18th Parliamentary polls on Friday, which may prove to be a litmus test for all political parties as they endeavour to reshape their organisations ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls. Approximately 56,25,778 voters are expected to exercise their franchise in these three Parliamentary constituencies Alipurduar, Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri elections this year.

There are 5,814 booths, out of which 578 have been declared sensitive. There will be 47 model polling stations with 21 in Cooch Behar and 13 each in Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri. There will be 428 polling stations that will be manned by all-women polling personnel; 212 such stations are in Alipurduar, 149 in Jalpaiguri and 67 in Cooch Behar.

In Alipurduar constituency, there are a total of 11 candidates contesting in Friday’s election. A total of 17,73,252 voters will cast their votes across 1867 booths, with 7000 polling personnel deployed, including reserve polling personnel. The Indo-Bhutan International border has been closed since Tuesday at 6 pm and will remain closed until Friday at 6 pm due to security reasons. Additionally, there is a special security agreement on the Assam border at Pakriguri. The District Election Commission confirmed that three central force personnel will be deployed in each booth, totalling 63 company central forces for that constituency. A total of 2758 state police personnel will be stationed for security.

In the Cooch Behar Lok Sabha Constituency, 14 candidates will compete in the upcoming election on Friday. The total number of voters is 1,966,563, comprising 1,014,613 male voters, 951,917 female voters, and 33 third-gender voters. There are 2,043 polling stations, with 53,854 new voters in the district. To facilitate the polling process, 12,180 polling personnel will be deployed, utilizing a total of 1,377 transports. Additionally, there are 196 sensitive booths in Cooch Behar, for which 112 companies of central forces have been allocated. Five central force personnel will be stationed at each polling station.

In the Jalpaiguri Lok Sabha Constituency, 12 candidates will vie for victory in Friday’s election. The total number of voters is 1,885,963, and there are 1,904 polling stations.

To manage the polling process, 9,500 polling personnel will be deployed. Jalpaiguri has 382 sensitive booths, for which 100 companies of central forces have been assigned. Each polling station will be guarded by four Central force personnel, along with 4,000 state police personnel deployed across the polling stations.

Approximately 30 polling stations located near forests in Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar and Cooch Behar will receive security cover from forest personnel to safeguard poll workers from potential encounters with wild animals. Special patrolling teams, consisting of armed and tracker personnel, have been deployed to ward off attacks from wild animals including elephants, bison and leopards.

The Commission laid special emphasis on security arrangements with Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based webcasting systems across all 5814 booths in these three constituencies. The poll panel will be deploying 263 companies of Central Armed Paramilitary Forces (CAPF) to guard the polling stations, 4 strong rooms, and manage the Quick Response Team (QRT) that will be involved in the first phase of polls.

Sources in the office of the state Chief Electoral Officer, Jalpaiguri leads the list of critical polling stations in the first phase with 382 out of 1904 polling stations featuring in the list. Cooch Behar is second in this list having 196 out of 2043 polling stations as highly sensitive. Alipurduar has 159 out of its 1867 PSs as critical.