| Trinamool
candidate for Bijpur alleges booth capturing
Barasat,
May 10:
Trinamool Congress candidate for Bijpur Assembly seat jagadish Das
has alleged that a number of his polling agents were beaten up and
driven out of booths by CPI-M cadres as the polling began here Thursday
morning.
Staging a dharna
before the Bijpur police station in the North 24 Parganas district,
he told reporters that he had found booths "captured"
by the ruling Marxists.
Meanwhile, in
the Barrackpore sub-division, due to faultyvoting machines, polls
could start only an hour later after they were replaced, official
sources said.
Polling for
the election to 294 seats in West Bengal Assembly, seen as the toughest
fight for the ruling Left Front and the Trinamool Congress-Congress
combine, began at 7.00 am amidst unprecedented security.
In all, 175
companies of central para-military forces have been deployed besides
over 42,000 state police and 14,000 city police to ensure free,
fair and peaceful election, official sources here said.
Of the 61,542
polling booths 15 per cent in the state have been identified as
sensitive. Security forces are on intensive patrol in the trouble-prone
areas, the sources said.
The election
will decide the fate of 1,876 candidates. Prominent among them are
Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattcharya, Finance Minister Him Dasgupta,
CLP leader Atish Sinha, former state Congress chief Somen Mitra,
Trinamool Congress policy-making body chairman Pankaj Banerjee,
film stars Tapas Pal, Madhabi Mukherjee and President of party for
Democratic Socialism Saifuddin Chowdhury.
Of the 294 constituencies,
only two--Keshpur and Nayagram will witness straight contest.(PTI)
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