Polling peaceful in early hours; 24.61% voter turnout till 11 am
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Kolkata, March 27: After days of high-octane campaigns and a series of lucrative poll promises by contesting parties, the first phase of elections in West Bengal and Assam got underway at 7 am on Saturday. The state of West Bengal witnessed a peaceful polling in the early hours of Saturday with 24.61 per cent of turnout till 9 am. Whereas, Assam recorded 24.48 per cent of voter turnout till 9 am.
Voting is being held today in 30 of Bengal’s 294 Assembly seats. There are 191 candidates in the fray, and over 73 lakh voters are on the rolls to exercise their franchise. The prominent candidates include BJP district president Sukhamoy Satpati, actress June Maliah, four-time Congress MLA from Baghmundi Nepal Mahato and Sanjukta Morcha’s Susanta Ghosh.
In Assam, 47 Assembly seats are going to polls, with 264 candidates in the fray. Over 8 lakh are eligible to vote. Some of the prominent faces are Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowol, state Congress chief Ripun Bora and Raijor Dal’s Akhil Gogoi.
In West Bengal, polling is being held amid tight security with the Election Commission deploying around 730 companies of central forces, guarding 10,288 polling booths housed in 7,061 premises. Besides, 22,092 state police personnel have also been deployed at strategic locations.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP National President J P Nadda made frequent visits to both the states to drum up support for BJP, it was Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee and Congress leaders Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi who hit the streets to garner support for their respective parties. The BJP hopes to retain power in Assam and defeat the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. Assam and Bengal will have three-phase and eight-phase elections, respectively. The counting of votes will be on May 2.
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