On Saturday, April 10 West Bengal went under its fourth phase of voting for 44 Assembly constituencies including 9 Assembly constituencies in Howrah, 5 in Alipurduar, 11 in South 24 Parganas, 9 in Cooch Behar, and 10 in Hooghly.
With the conclusion of the fourth phase, Bengal has already completed its voting for 135 seats out of 294 assembly seats with 4 more phases yet to be seen. The upcoming four phases will witness the elections on the rest of the 159 seats.
The 5th phase on April 17 will be held across 45 seats in the districts of North Bengal and South Bengal constituting 13 assembly seats in Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri in North Bengal while 32 assembly seats in Bardhaman, Nadia, and North 24 Parganas district in South Bengal.
Notably, the fourth phase along with some riotous situations in some areas of polling stations witnessed a good amount of polling on Saturday where total polling is scaled to be 76.16% till 5 pm.
With 44 assembly seats going under polls in the 4th phase the statistics say Cooch Behar with 9 seats recorded 79.73% polling, Alipurduar with 5 seats recorded 73.65% polling, 10 seats of Hooghly in South Bengal scaled 76.02% and 9 in Howrah recorded 75.03% polling.
A total of 75.49% electorate cast their votes in south 24 Parganas and Bhangar assembly among them all scaled highest of the day with 85.12% polling.
A brawl was seen in Cooch Behar district where 5 people were killed in 2 different incidents. One of them at Amtali Madhyamik Siksha Kendra booth no. 126 falling under Jor Patki gram panchayat at Sitalkuchi where CRPF opened fire in self-defence as more than 300–350 people including women attacked guards with edged weapons after a rumour spread that security personnel has beaten up a person who had allegedly fallen ill. After then, the polling was suspended at the polling station to control the situation.
On the same day another incident at Sitalkuchi, Cooch Behar was noticed where an 18-year-old boy named Anand Barman was killed by some miscreants when he was returning home from the polling station. Some locals confessed those miscreants to be TMC karyakartas and that they shot down the boy as he was a BJP supporter. This incident took place at booth no. 285 at Pathantuli under Bolenhati gram panchayat.
The Chief Electoral Officer confirmed that two accused are detained in connection with the incident.
Notably, a few days back the BJP West Bengal President Dilip Ghosh and the TMC goons attacked his convoy in the district. Other than Cooch Behar, reports of incidents of tussle and violence were sighted as the BJP candidate Locket Chatterjee was attacked at Chinsurah. Followed by one more BJP candidate Indranil Khan at Kasba Assembly also alleged electoral malpractices.
The CEO said that the polling in Cooch Behar was peaceful except for these two incidents at Sitalkuchi.
[author title=”Shreya Gohel” image=”http://localhost/gc2/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/20210127_014031.jpg”]Intern, Goa Chronicle[/author]DISCLAIMER: This article reflects author’s view point. Goa Chronicle may or may not subscribe to views of the author
