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Voting begins for first phase of Assembly polls in Assam, WB

by IBNS 04 Apr 2016, 07:02 am

Kolkata/Guwahati, Apr 4 (IBNS) Voting has begun for the first phase of the Assembly polls in politically crucial Assam and West Bengal on Monday.

In West Bengal, the first phase of polling is taking place  in state's Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-hit areas which include West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia.

According to the Election Commission of India (ECI) report, 40,09,171 enrolled electors ( which include 20,47,202 male, 19,57,453 females and 16 third gender and 4500 service elector, will cast their votes through Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) at 4945 booths in 18 assembly constituencies of the LWE zone.

As many as 133 candidates, including 11 women, are contesting in these seats.

Micro-observers are available at 675 booths of total 4945. Web-casting are being conducted at 157 booths. Still or video cameras and CCTV cameras have been installed at 799 and 198 booths respectively.

The Central paramilitary force are present  at all polling stations. Flying Squad, Quick Response Team and Sector Mobile Vans will move in the areas during polls.

Polling will end at 4 pm.

A total of 95,11,732 voters of 65 assembly constituencies of Assam will decide to fates of 539 candidates in the first phase of polling in the state.

On Sunday, a total of 55912 polling officials, including 12190 presiding officials, left to the polling stations of the constituencies.

The Election Commission had identified 1992 polling stations as hyper sensitive, 3739 as sensitive and 1241 as critical polling stations for the first phase poll.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha in Kolkata and Hemanata Kumar Nath in Guwahati)