The fifth phase of polling in West Bengal on Monday remained largely peaceful though there were some sporadic incidents of violence. Seven seats— Arambagh, Bangaon, Barrackpur, Howrah, Hooghly, Srerampur and Uluberia—went to polls in this phase.
The current Lok Sabha polls have witnessed a transformation in West Bengal, which was once notorious for electoral violence. The previous four phases had also seen only isolated incidents.
The Election Commission has deployed extensive security measures in the state for the current general elections. In the fifth phase, the ECI increased the deployment of the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) to 799 companies, up from 578 companies in the fourth phase.
The presence of central forces has gradually grown with each phase since the second phase of the elections.
On Monday, the TMC and BJP workers confronted each other in certain areas of Barrackpore, Hooghly, Bangaon, and Arambagh constituencies. Locket Chatterjee, the BJP candidate in Hooghly, faced protests and ‘Go Back’ slogans as she visited a polling booth. This led to a tensed situation.
A similar situation happened when BJP’s Barrackpur candidate Arjun Singh visited a booth, alleging poll rigging. The TMC workers stopped him while the security personnel resorted to lathicharge.
In Srerampur, CPI(M) candidate Dipsita Dhar was also stopped by TMC workers from visiting a booth. She had reached there after receiving information that the CPI(M)’s polling agent was allegedly beaten up.
In Arambagh, there were clashes between BJP and TMC workers after the polling agents were prevented from entering the booths.
On Monday, the combined polling percentage till 5 pm was registered at 73 per cent in seven constituencies spread across five districts of North 24 Parganas, Nadia, Hooghly, Howrah and Paschim Medinipur. West Bengal saw the highest voter turnout in the country in the latest phase.
Arambagh, a constituency reserved for scheduled caste (SC), recorded the maximum voter turnout at 76.90 per cent, followed by Bangaon, another reserved seat for SC, at 75.73 per cent. Barrackpur, Hooghly, Howrah, Srerampur, and Uluberia recorded polling percentages of 68.84, 74.17, 68.84, 71.18, and 74.50, respectively.
In the fifth phase, there were a total of 88 candidates in the fray, with Bongaon having the maximum number of 15 contenders. This included Union Minister Shantanu Thakur who is running against TMC’s Biswajit Das.
Other notable candidates in the fray were the BJP’s Locket Chatterjee and the TMC’s Rachana Banerjee—both actors and contesting against each other in Hooghly—and the CPI(M)’s Srerampur candidate Dipsita Dhar.
