Bypolls in 3 Assembly seats peaceful, over 75% polling registered

Kolkata: The by-election in three Assembly constituencies — Karimpur, Kaliagunj and Kharagpur Sadar — passed off peacefully on Monday.

Over 7.34 lakh voters were eligible to vote in 801 polling stations to choose their representatives from among 18 candidates, including three women.

The by-election in three Assembly seats became necessary after two sitting MLAs — Mohua Moitra and Dilip Ghosh representing Karimpur and Kharagpur Sadar constituencies respectively became MPs following the Lok Sabha election in 2019, while Pramatha Nath Ray, Congress MLA from Kaliagunj died some months ago.

In Kharagpur Sadar, Pradip Sarkar of the Trinamool Congress is contesting against Premchand Jha of BJP and Chittaranjan Mondol of the Left Front-Congress alliance.

In Karimpur, Bimalendu Singha Roy of the TMC is fighting against Joyprakash Majumdar of BJP and Golam Rabbi of CPI(M). In Kaliagunj, TMC's Tapan Debsingh is fighting against Kamal Chandra Sarkar of the BJP and Dhitashri Ray of the Congress.

"The average voting percentage was 75.48 per cent. The turnout was 77.17 per cent in Kaliagunj, 67.62 in Kharagpur Sadar and 81.23 in Karimpur," the Election Commission said.

People stood in long queues to exercise their franchise and Central forces were deployed in 60 per cent booths.

The Election Commission issued show-cause notice against BJP candidate of Kaliagunj Assembly seat Kamal Chandra Sarkar after he helped his wife to cast her vote in favour of the party. The matter was reported to the EC which issued show-cause notice against him and removed the Presiding Officer. Voting in the polling station was held up for almost half-an-hour.

In Kharagpur Sadar, the Trinamool Congress lodged a complaint against BJP MP and state president Dilip Ghosh who was camping in the area. Ghosh said he had obtained permission from the sub-divisional officer. The latter, however, denied giving any permission. The TMC alleged as to how Ghosh, who is not a resident of Kharagpur, remain in the constituency on the day of polling.

In Kaliagunj, a scuffle broke out between Trinamool and BJP supporters in some booths. BJP alleged that two of their election agents had been abducted by the Trinamool workers. The Quick Response Team officials went to the houses of the election agents and found them there. BJP later dropped the complaint.

The BJP leaders alleged that the TMC workers did not allow their workers to cast their votes.

Partha Chatterjee, the TMC secretary general refuted the charges levelled by the saffron party. "The people of Bengal are with the TMC and BJP has no chance. The moment the leaders discovered this, they are not talking sense."

The result of the by-election will be out on November 28. It is an acid test for the TMC and will highlight whether the party has successfully increased its vote bank by capitalising the success of "Didi Ke Bolo" or the BJP's success in the last Lok Sabha election continues to attract voters.