Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Over 78 per cent of voters had cast their franchise till later afternoon on April 29, in the second phase of elections for the West Bengal Assembly. This, said an IANS report, is marginally lower than the 78.77 per cent recorded in the first six hours of April 23 voting in the first phase.
The Election Commission is confident that the final polling percentage in the second phase will be around 93 per cent, as recorded in the first phase.
“The common factor in both the phases of polling has been that the high polling percentage has been almost uniform throughout the day,” an insider from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, was quoted as saying in the IANS report.
In the high-profile Bhabanipur Assembly constituency in South Kolkata, where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is pitted against Suvendu Adhikari, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, the polling percentage till 3 pm was 75.66.
The second round is being seen as the ‘litmus test’ for the Trinamool Congress (TMC), as the voting has moved into the party’s traditional fortresses in South Bengal and Kolkata.
The 142 seats that are witnessing polls in the second phase are spread across seven districts – North 24 Parganas (33 seats), South 24 Parganas (31), Nadia (17), Howrah (16) and Kolkata (11), Hooghly (18) and Purba Bardhaman (16).
