20 per cent turnout recorded in first three hours in Bengal

Kolkata, May 8 (UNI) An estimated 20 per cent polling was recorded in the first three hours of the fifth and final phase Assembly election to 49 seats in six northern districts of West Bengal.

Polling started on a brisk note since morning. With the weather looking up after last night's squall bringing much needed respite, people from all walks of life, particularly tea garden workers, were seen queuing up in front of several booths to exercise their franchise.

Chief Electoral Officer(CEO) Debasish Sen said no untoward incident had been reported so far from anywhere and the polling was going on smoothly.

The voters included a sizable number of women and the youth, exercising their franchise for the first time.

A total of 816,4210 voters, including 389,7456 women, will exercise their franchise across Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, North and South Dinajpur and Malda districts to decide the fates of 306 candidates, including Municipal Affairs Minister Ashok Bhattacharya, Forest Minister Jogesh Burman, Relief Minister Hafiz Alam Sairani, Jail Affairs Minister Biswanath Choudhury, Civil Defence Minister Srikumar Mukherjee, Food Processing Minister Sailen Sarkar and Minister of State for PWD Dasarath Tirkey.

More than 50,000 central para military force jawans are manning altogether 9089 polling booths and guarding vital installations.

Like the previous rounds of polling, digital cameras are on inside polling booths to take snaps of the voters without having photo identity cards and also of any abnormal incident.

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