Lok Sabha elections: Voting under way in 3 seats in West Bengal; no violence reported

An EC official said that voting was going on peacefully in West Bengal with no allegations of any large-scale poll related violence

Voting for the three Lok Sabha seats – Darjeeling, Balurghat and Raiganj – in West Bengal was going on peacefully with no allegations of any large-scale poll-related violence, an Election Commission of India (ECI) said on Friday.

Till around 9am, the voter turnout in the three constituencies was 15.6%. (Representative file photo)

“Voting was going on peacefully with no allegations of any large-scale poll related violence,” said an ECI official.

Till around 9am, the voter turnout in the three constituencies was 15.6%.

While Balurghat recorded 14.7% turnout and Darjeeling recorded 15.5% turnout, Raiganj witnessed 16.4% turnout.

The poll panel received around 60 complaints in the first two hours mostly related to EVM malfunctioning.

There was mild tension reported from Tapan in Balurghat with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) sitting MP and party’s candidate Sukanta Majumdar alleging that TMC supporters were raising ‘go back’ slogans against him within 100 metres of a polling booth. Majumdar was seen engaging in an altercation with the state police and TMC supporters.

For the BJP, Balurghat is a key constituency as the party’s president and sitting MP Majumdar is contesting from here.

Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah have campaigned in this constituency. The TMC has fielded state minister Biplab Mitra against him.

“He knows he will lose this time. The BJP hasn’t been able to post agents in all booths. Hence, he is staging such drama,” said Biplab Mitra, state minister and TMC candidate.

In all, 47 candidates are contesting for these three seats located in north Bengal. Around 5.1 million electors will be exercising their franchises from these three seats.

At Raiganj, the TMC has fielded Krishna Kalyani who was earlier with the BJP. Kartik Paul left the Congress to join the BJP and is contesting this time. Ali Imran Ramz, who was earlier with the Forward Bloc joined the Congress.

Tension had sparked off at Goalpokhar in North Dinajpur district, where Raiganj Lok Sabha seat is located, when TMC supporters raised slogans against the Congress candidate.

Voting was also underway peacefully in Darjeeling which has been a BJP bastion since 2009.

The state had witnessed massive violence and shut down for 104-days in 2017 over the demand of a separate statehood. While the BJP has fielded its sitting MP Raju Bista, the TMC has fielded former bureaucrat Gopal Lama.