As per the Election Commission, after the announcement of the Lok Sabha elections to date, drugs worth Rs 15.33 crore, jewellery worth Rs 22.63 crore without proper documents, and freebies worth Rs 52.94 crore have been seized.

Six Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal have been identified as “financially sensitive” by the Election Commission, namely Darjeeling, Asansol, Malda South, Bongaon, Kolkata North and Kolkata South. The Malda South and Bongaon seats share an international border with Bangladesh and Darjeeling district shares a 101 km border with Nepal, 30 km with Bhutan and another 19 km with Bangladesh. To check the flow of cash and contraband smuggling, the EC has held several meetings on these seats.

As per officials, for the first phase of elections on April 19, central forces have been deployed in three Lok Sabha constituencies – Cooch Behar (17), Jalpaiguri (11) and Alipurduar (9) – for confidence-building exercises. Seventeen candidates are in the fray in Cooch Behar, 13 in Jalpaiguri and 11 in Alipurduar.

For the second phase of elections in Darjeeling, North Dinajpur and South Dinajpur, 18 companies of central forces have been reserved. A total of 177 companies of central forces have been deployed in West Bengal so far.

Special observers to take charge

Two special observers appointed by the Election Commission, Alok Sinha and Anil Kumar Sharma, will take charge in West Bengal and are expected to reach Kolkata next week. Sinha is a retired 1988 batch IAS officer from the Uttar Pradesh cadre. He was an additional chief secretary to the UP government and was also chairman of the Airports Authority of India. Sharma is a retired IPS officer of the 1984 batch from the Punjab cadre. He was the intelligence chief in Punjab and had been a special observer in the 2021 Assembly polls in Bengal.

Meanwhile, after conducting raids for two days, the Income Tax department on Friday said it has seized Rs 58 lakh in cash from a trader’s office in Kolkata’s Chetla.