Polling begins in six Bengal districts

Kolkata, May 8 (UNI) Polling for the fifth and final phase of West Bengal Assembly elections began at 0700 hrs today amid high enthusiasm of voters and heavy security arrangements in six northern districts.

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

Large number of people, drawn from all walks of life, were seen queuing up in front of the booths in many areas even before the polling started.

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 in 49 constituencies across Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, North and South Dinajpur and Malda districts to decide the fates of 306 candidates of whom seven are Ministers.

Prominent among the aspirtants are 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, all seeking reelection as Left Front nominees.

Former Minister Narayan Biswas and Union Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi's wife Deepa Dasmunshi are among other contestants.

More than 50,000 central para military force jawans are deployed to take charge of altogether 9089 polling booths and guard vital installations as the Election Commission continued with tough measures taken in the previous phases.

Deputy Election Commissioner Anand Kumar, who is to supervising the polling, said surveillance had been mounted along the state's border with Bangladesh, Nepal as well with Bihar.

As in the previous rounds of polling, digital cameras are being used inside polling booths to take snaps of the voters without having photo identity cards and also of any abnormal happening.

UNI KDG SJC PA RK0920