78 per cent turnout in phase 4 of West Bengal polls

The fourth phase of the six-phase Assembly election in 49 constituencies across the districts of North 24 Parganas and Howrah was concluded peacefully on Monday. The average voter turnout till 5 pm was 78.05 per cent. However, the final voter turnout will increase further as the voting continued till 6 pm. Chief electoral officer (CEO) in West Bengal Sunil Gupta said there was no major incidents of violence and no vitiation of the poll process. However, the Election Commission received total 4,173 complaints related to booth capturing, false voting, and intimidation of voters from political parties and disposed 4,023 of such complaints till 6.30 pm. This was the highest number of complaints received on a poll day compared to the first three phases of the Assembly election. On third phase polling, the EC had received 2,777 complaints. Today, as many as 229 arrests were made and 3 polling officers were removed. The voter turnout in North 24 Parganas and Howrah districts till 5 pm was 79.16 and 75.46 per cent respectively.

“Today, there was no poll boycotting by people and there was no vitiation of the poll process. There was no major incident of violence and the polling was peaceful. During poll hours, we replaced two presiding officers and one 2nd polling officer and replaced 69 EVMs after they developed technical snags,” Mr Gupta said.

Responding to queries about the large number of complaints received during the fourth phase, the CEO said, “The complaints were addressed from time to time. Most of them were baseless complaints.”

Over 1.08 crore voters, including 52.30 lakh women exercised their franchise in 12,481 polling stations in the fourth phase polling to decide the fate of 345 candidates, including 40 female. Among 49 seats- 33 are in North 24 Parganas and 16 are in Howrah.

ADG (law and order) in West Bengal Anuj Sharma said that there were 10 specific cases of violence during poll hours and another case of violence which took place last night. “In 11 specific cases of violence, 7 people were injured and 22 people were arrested. Apart from that, 207 preventive arrests were made taking the total arrests to 229. There were no major incidents of violence reported from the Biddhannagar area,” Mr Sharma said.

According to the political parties, polling in the fourth phase was by and large peaceful compared to the first three phases. So far, voters in 216 of the total 294 constituencies have exercised their franchise in the first four phases.

Polling for the fifth and sixth phases will be held on April 30 and May 5.