Seven Parl seats to go to polls today

Kolkata: As many as 88 candidates, including 14 women, are in the fray for the fifth phase polls in Bengal on Monday when seven Parliamentary constituencies (PCs) – Bongaon, Barrackpore, Howrah, Uluberia, Serampore, Hooghly and Arambagh are going for polls.

The Election Commission (EC) has deployed over 60,000 Central Forces (613 companies) and 25,590 state forces, the highest deployment so far in the elections held in the state. The strong security deployment comes in the wake of vulnerability reports from the constituencies revealing that 7,711 out of 13,481 polling stations, accounting over 57 per cent of the booths, are classified as sensitive. There will be almost 7.8 CAPF personnel per polling premise.

Among the seven PCs going for polls, four were won by Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Howrah, Uluberia, Serampore and Arambag were wrested by BJP while the other three Hooghly, Bongaon and Barrackpore were bagged by the BJP.

Over 1.25 crore voters, including over 63.51 lakh males and 61.72 lakh females, will exercise their franchise in the 5th phase. The first time electors, over 2.60 lakh, will be a deciding factor in this phase of polls. The total number of 85 plus electors in this phase stands at 80,775 with 571 of them above 100 years.