Polling in 34 Bengal assembly seats peaceful, sporadic violence marks 7th phase

The seventh and second-last phase of polling in 34 Bengal assembly seats in four districts and a part of south Kolkata were held peacefully on Monday barring stray violence in some areas even as a sharp spike in coronavirus infections kept many voters indoors.

The overall provisional voting rate at 11,376 polling booths stood at 75.06 % at 5 pm. “Polling was conducted peacefully today,” the election commission (EC) said in a statement in the evening.

Rate of polling in the sixth and fifth phases was 82% and 82.49% respectively. The highest, 86.11 %, was recorded in the second phase on April 1.

On Monday, elections were held at six seats each in South Dinajpur and Malda, nine in Murshidabad, nine in West Burdwan and four in Kolkata. The number of candidates and voters were 268 and 81,88,907 respectively.

The eighth and last phase will be held on April 29 and campaigning for it ended on Monday.

At 51.91% till 5 pm, polling was drastically low in Kolkata, followed by West Burdwan (70.34%) where turnout of voters was low in Asansol and Durgapur cities. Murshidabad district, where Congress is a formidable force, recorded the highest turnout of 80.30 % followed by South Dinajpur (80.21%) and Malda (78.76%) where the Congress has a sizeable presence as well.

On Monday, Bengal reported 15,992 new coronavirus infections and 68 deaths. Of these, 3868 cases and 26 deaths were reported in Kolkata.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (TMC) and Trinamool Congress (TMC), the main contenders, exchanged charges of electoral malpractice and violence throughout the day. Though there was no report of any death or fatal injury, clashes took place in all the districts and Kolkata.

In Malda, Congress workers were allegedly assaulted in Chanchal, Harishchandrapur and Farakka.

In Murshidabad, polls were held in nine seats instead of 11 as originally scheduled as Pradip Kumar Nandi, the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) candidate from Jangipur and Rezaul Haque, the Congress candidate from Samserganj died of Covid-19 earlier this month. Polls in the two seats will be held on May 16. In Murshidabad, the Muslim population (66.28%) is the highest among all districts.

Voters at a booth in the Murshidabad assembly seat alleged that Niyazuddin Sheikh, the Congress candidate distributed masks and asked people to vote for him. “I did not ask anyone to vote for me. I gave people some masks as they were not wearing any. It was for their safety,” said Sheikh. The EC sought a report on this incident.

The four seats in Kolkata included chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s old Bhawanipore constituency where power minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay contested against actor Rudranil Ghosh who severed ties with the ruling party and joined the BJP on January 30. “Trouble was reported at several places in Bhawanipore but the local police acted in favour of the TMC,” said Ghosh.

The chief minister cast her vote around 4 pm at a booth set up in an old school on Harish Mukherjee Road. Earlier in the day, she targeted the EC and BJP following the remarks of the Madras High Court against the poll panel over spike in Covid-19 cases.

“The court clearly said that ECI cannot shrug off its responsibility. The ECI has become the parrot of the BJP. It is because of them that Covid-19 cases have shot up,” Banerjee said at a virtual election rally.

On Monday afternoon, there was a clash between TMC and Congress workers at the Kolkata Port seat from where urban development minister and former Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim had won twice since 2011.

Debasish Kumar, the TMC candidate from the high-profile Rashbehari seat in Kolkata alleged that central armed police force personnel stopped him from entering several polling booths. The EC sought a report after Kumar lodged complaints.

The BJP candidate at Rashbehari, retired Lt Gen Subrata Saha who last served as deputy chief of the Indian army, said, “Our supporters faced intimidation on Monday morning as well. The fact that so many people left home to cast their votes in the middle of a pandemic shows how desperate they are to see a change in government.”

No violence took place in South Dinajpur. At Balurhat, BJP candidate Ashok Lahiri, who was earlier the chief economic adviser to the Union government, said, “Polling was peaceful and fair. I have complete faith in the people of Balurghat.”

At Bengal’s biggest industrial and coal mining zone in West Burdwan district, the BJP was ahead of the TMC in all nine assembly segments in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Bengal BJP’s Mahila Morcha (women’s front) president and noted fashion designer Agnimitra Paul, who contested the Asansol South seat, brought several allegations against the TMC. Jawaharlal Nehru University students’ union president Aishe Ghosh of the CPI (M), who contested the Jamuria seat, alleged that Left cadres were assaulted by TMC workers.

BJP national president J P Nadda concluded the party’s campaign by addressing back-to-back virtual rallies.

“Mamata Banerjee fought the elections with a negative narrative but the electorate of Bengal took a positive approach and supported the BJP. The language Mamata Banerjee used against the Prime Minister and the Union home minister and the way she distorted my name do not represent Bengali culture,” Nadda said at a press conference.

Incidents of pre and post-poll violence also took place.

In Birbhum district, where polls will be held on April 29, bombs kept inside the toilet of an empty house went off on Monday afternoon. Though no one was injured, the adjacent house was demolished.

In North 24 Parganas, where polls were held on April 22, Anurag Shaw, a first-year college student was killed on Sunday night after he was hit by splinters from a bomb thrown by miscreants.