Elections to municipal corporations of Bidhannagar, Asansol, Siliguri and Chandernagore in West Bengal were on Saturday peaceful, barring a few incidents of skirmishes, with around 72 per cent of electors exercising their franchise till 5 PM, an SEC official said. The voting began at 7 AM.
“Polling has been peaceful so far. We have taken a note of some disturbances from these municipal corporation areas where outsiders were found standing in voters’ queue,” the senior official of the West Bengal State Election Commission said. A voter turnout of 72.02 per cent was registered in Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation till 5 PM, while the polling percentage in Siliguri, Asansol and Chandernagore were 71.87, 71.67 and 71.49 respectively, he said.
As per the SEC, the final percentage figure will be available on Sunday as people still stood in queues outside polling booths at 5 PM, the scheduled time for the closure of voting. “BJP candidates Subhasish Das and Biswajit Mondal in Siliguri have been detained by the police for their alleged involvement in creating problems outside polling booths,” the SEC official said.
The police made elaborate security arrangements in all the four municipal areas situated in different parts of the state for the peaceful conduct of the polls, he said. He also stated that outsiders were detected in voters’ lines in two wards of Bidhannagar and one in Siliguri.
Asked about a firing incident in Asansol civic body area, the official said the commission is looking into the complaint. BJP leader Jitendra Tiwari accused miscreants affiliated to the TMC of opening fire in ward-27 of Asansol, following which a huge police contingent was deployed there, the official said.
The ruling party termed the allegation as baseless. Tiwari, a former TMC legislator, was mayor of Asansol before he switched over to the saffron camp ahead of the assembly polls last year.
He also claimed that his election agent was stopped from entering a booth by the TMC workers, though the Mamata Banerjee party denied the allegation. The BJP alleged that the ruling party brought people from outside the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation area and engaged them in “proxy voting”.
The CPI (M) accused TMC workers of attacking its polling agent inside a booth in Jamuria area within the Asansol Municipal Corporation limits. Altogether, 203 candidates are contesting in 41 wards in Bidhannagar, while 200 are in the fray in 47 seats of the Siliguri civic body, as per the SEC website.
There are 120 aspirants for 33 wards in Chandernagore, and 430 candidates are contesting in 106 seats in Asansol. The counting of votes will be held on February 14.
In the 2015 elections, Siliguri was won by the Left Front, while the TMC secured the three other municipal corporations.Polls to these civic bodies, along with more than 100 others, were postponed due to Covid-19.
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