A total of 1,25,23,702 voters, including 61,72,034 women and 348 belonging to the third gender, are eligible to exercise their franchise across 13,481 polling stations According to officials, the Election Commission of India (ECI) received nearly 2,000 complaints of EVMs malfunctioning, polling agents being stopped from entering polling booths and voters being threatened or stopped from casting votes from various political parties.
“About 73 per cent polling was recorded till 5 pm. The polling was peaceful barring some isolated incident of violence,” said an EC official. Till 4.30 pm, the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer’s office had received 1,913 complaints.
Polling was held in Bangaon, Barrackpur, Uluberia, Howrah, Hooghly, Arambagh and Serampore Lok Sabha seats from 7am to 6pm. The highest polling percentage was recorded in Arambagh (76.90%), followed by Bangaon (75.73%), Uluberia (74.50 %), Hooghly (74.17 %), Serampore (71.18 %) and Barrackpore and Howrah (68.84 %).
In Bangaon’s Swarupnagar, an alleged clash between Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) left four saffron camp workers injured, police said.
Union Minister and BJP’s Bangaon nominee Santanu Thakur alleged that central forces were not being sent to places where trouble had broken out. “The police are not seen in places like Gayeshpur where our polling agent was beaten up by TMC workers,” alleged Thakur.
In a separate incident, TMC and BJP workers allegedly clashed as the two parties accused each other of stopping polling agents from entering booths, in Khanakul area of Arambagh constituency in Hooghly district. Meanwhile, central forces also recovered two crude bombs from the area.
TMC workers also staged a protest against central forces while accusing them of “assisting BJP workers in intimidating voters” at some booths of Hooghly parliamentary constituency.
In North 24 Parganas’ Barrackpur BJP candidate Arjun Singh faced ‘Go Back’ slogans’ while he was visiting one of the polling booths. Another BJP nominee, Rathin Chakraborty, faced protests during his visit to a polling booth in Howrah’s Liluah.
In Hooghly, sitting MP and BJP candidate Locket Chatterjee took a dig at TMC candidate and fellow actress Rachana Banerjee and warned of retaliation if her party agents were attacked.
“The EC is ready and we are also ready. Here the TMC’s corruption is our main opponent. Here, it doesn’t matter if you are a movie star or an experienced leader. If our agents are attacked, then we will retaliate,” said Chatterjee.
A total of 1,25,23,702 voters — 63,51,320 men and 61,72,034 women, and 348 belonging to the third gender — were eligible to exercise their franchise across 13,481 polling stations during the fifth phase.