Third phase polling begins

Kolkata, Apr 27 : Polling for the third phase Assembly election to 76 seats in West Bengal began at 0700 hours this morning in Kolkata and North and South 24 Parganas districts amid heavy security.

Altogether 12.5 million electorate will exercise their franchise in the polling in 76 out of 77 Assembly constituencies to elect representatives from among 473 candidates, including 36 women.

Prominent among those contesting elections are Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Information Technology Minister Manab Mukherjee, Labour Minister Mohammad Amin, Housing Minister Gautam Deb, Land Reforms Minister Abdur Rezzak Molla, Sundarbans Development Minister Kanti Ganguly, Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta, PWD Minister Amar Chaudhury, Transport Minister Subhas Chakravarty and Assembly Speaker Hasim Abdul Halim.

Former city Mayor Subrata Mukherjeee is also in the fray as a Congress candidate, while Bengali film stars Biplab Chatterjee and Tapas Paul are locked in a glamour fight as CPI(M) and Trinamool Congress nominees respectively.

Election to Bhatpara Assembly seat, countermanded following the death of BSP candidate, would take place on May 16.

The polling is set to be held amid a very tight security with more than 50,000 central para miliatry force jawans manning all the 13,790 polling booths and patrolling streets.

Like the first two phases, 3,000 digital cameras are being used to take photographs of voters without having photo identity cards.

There was a massive deletion from the electoral rolls for the third phase of polling with 2.92 lakh names being dropped out of the list.

With the Election Commission (EC) putting a tight leash on the poll process political leaders enjoying security have been barred from venturing out of their respective constituencies.

While Kolkata accounts for 24,34,221 voters, North 24 Parganas has 5226801 voters and South 24 Parganas has 49,52,239 electorate.

The number of polling stations is 2596 in Kolkata and 5712 and 5482 respectively in North and South 24 Parganas.

The city's Burra Bazar constituency has the maximum number of contestants - 13 - while as low as three candidates are in the fray each from Bishnupur(East) and Falta in South 24 Parganas and Panihati in North 24 Parganas.

The largest Assembly Constituency in terms of voters is Barasat in North 24 Parganas with an electorate of 32,10,342, while Sealdah in Kolkata with only 65,157 voters is the smallest one.

UNI