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West Bengal municipal elections: Polling underway in peaceful manner in 4 civic bodies
Heavy security has been deployed at all polling booths in West Bengal as the voting continues.
Polling is underway in a peaceful manner in all four municipal corporations of West Bengal – Siliguri, Bidhannagar, Chandannagar, and Asansol – as voters queued up outside the polling booths early morning on Saturday. Voting started at 7am with COVID-19 protocols in place and will go on till 5pm. The counting will be held on February 14.
Heavy police force has been deployed at every polling booth as the voting continues under tight security. Thermal checking and sanitisation of voters are being done before voting.
Police are also conducting naka checking and patrolling in the river by boat.
Apart from the civic body in Siliguri, which was bagged by the Left Front in the last municipal elections in 2015, the remaining three municipalities are under TMC.
A total of 203 candidates are contesting in 41 wards in Bidhannagar, while Asansol has 106 wards for which a total of 430 candidates are contesting. In Siliguri, as many as 201 contestants in 47 wards.
Out of the 33 wards in Chandannagar, elections are being conducted in 32 wards. Polling in ward number 17 has been postponed due to the sudden death of the BJP candidate.
Among the senior politicians, former state minister Goutam Deb of Trinamool Congress, Siliguri BJP MLA Sankar Ghosh, former Siliguri Mayor, and veteran CPI-M leader Asok Bhattacharya are contesting the polls.
Sabyasachi Dutta, former Bidhannagar Mayor of TMC, who had joined BJP during the Assembly elections and then returned back to TMC after the result of the election, is also contesting the polls from Ward no 31 from Bidhannagar.
Earlier on Friday, the TMC was pulled into a fresh row over the "One Person, One Post" campaign after party leader and minister in Mamata Banerjee's government Chandrima Bhattacharya posted the slogan on her social media handle.
Bhattacharya later claimed that the post was done by consultancy group I-PAC.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is set to hold an emergency meeting with senior leaders of her party later in the day. The meeting will be held at Banerjee's Kalighat office at 5pm.
The civic polls were earlier slated to be held on January 22 but the High Court postponed it for 4-6 weeks, citing the third wave of COVID-19 in the state. The life of the residents of the state will be put to threat if the elections are held, it had stated.
With Agency inputs
