[1]Over 1,200 of 1,792 candidates contesting Assembly elections from West Bengal's 294 constituencies lost not just the polls but also their security deposits.
According to the officials in state chief electoral officer's office, among the 1,238 such unsuccessful candidates, 279 candidates are from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and three each from the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and Trinamool Congress. BJP fielded candidates in 289 Assembly constituencies.
Of these, only 10 were able to save their security deposits by securing more than one-sixth of the total number of valid votes polled in their respective constituencies. The three unlucky Trinamool Congress candidates are Sheikh Jalaluddin from Chopra constituency in North Dinajpur, Gautam Chakraborty from Malatipur in Murshidabad and Kritan Chandra Mahato from Joypur in Purulia districts.
In the three hill constituencies of Darjeeling, the CPI-M candidates needed to secure more than 16.66 per cent of the votes to save their security deposits but they did disastrously. In Kalimpong, CPI-M's Bikram Chhetri secured 2.49 per cent while his colleagues K.B. Wattar from Darjeeling and Deepa Chhetri from Kurseong could secure only 3.49 and 2.75 per cent of votes, respectively.
Those whose security deposits have been forfeited also include candidates from the Congress as well as from regional parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the Socialist Unity Centre of India.
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[1] http://103.241.136.51/west-bengal-polls-voters-queue-linejpg-394