Around 81 per cent of the voters on Wednesday exercised their franchise in 75 constituencies in North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas and Kolkata in the third phase of the six-phased Assembly elections in West Bengal.
Like, the earlier two phases on April 18 and 23, this time also the elections were entirely peaceful with no major law and order-related incident being reported. No person was killed or injured in any poll-related violence and 107 persons were arrested out of which 106 were taken into preventive custody.
Three voters died during the polling, two in South 24 Parganas and one in North 24 Parganas, but not because of violence.
The voting took place under a stringent security arrangement with the deployment of the Central paramilitary forces in all polling stations.
In this phase, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, state finance minister Asim Dasgupta, housing minister Gautam Deb and leader of Opposition in state Assembly Partha Chatterjee among others were the contesting candidates in fray.
State chief electoral officer Sunil Gupta said, “Till 6.30 pm, 78.3 per cent of around 1.45 crore voters in North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas and Kolkata cast their vote.
Since polling is being continued in many polling stations even after 5 pm due to long queue of voters in those booths, we expect that the voters’ turnout would further increase.”
According to the sources at the Election Commission (EC), the total voters’ turnout in these three districts is around 81 per cent as per compiled report at 8.30 pm.
In South 24 Parganas, the voting percentage was 84, while in North 24 Parganas it stood at 83 per cent.
The commission considers Kolkata as two districts: Kolkata North and Kolkata South. In Kolkata North, the voters turnout is 64 per cent while for Kolkata South it is 65 per cent as per latest report at 8.30 pm.
In 2006 Assembly elections, the polling percentage in these three districts was 77.94 per cent while in 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the voters’ turnout was 78.94 per cent.
The EC replaced 106 electronic voting machines (EVMs) due to malfunctioning but the polling process was not affected in those booths.
Live webcasting arrangement was made from 200 polling stations. The commission also installed digital cameras and video cameras in 1,222 and 660 polling booths respectively.
In addition, 2,191 micro observers were deployed by the commission at booth level.