Bengal : EC Announces Repolling In Booths Where Voting Declared Void

The West Bengal State Election Commission announced that repolling will be held on Monday in 696 booths where voting for the rural elections was declared void, a senior official said on Sunday.

The SEC, which held a meeting on Sunday evening, went through reports of vote-tampering and violence which affected polling in many places, and passed the order, an official said.

The repolling will be held in the booths, spread across 19 districts, from 7 am to 5 pm. Four central forces personnel will be present in each of the booths, besides state police, he added. "After reviewing the reports received from the districts, we have decided to conduct repolling in over 690 booths in 19 districts. There will be four CAPF personnel in every booth for tomorrow's polling," the official told PTI.

A total of 73,887 seats in the state's three-tier panchayat system went to the polls, with lakh 2.06 lakh candidates in the fray. A voter turnout of 66.28 per cent, provisionally, was recorded, while 5.67 crore people living in the state's rural areas were eligible to vote, officials said.

Meanwhile, West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose on Sunday flew to New Delhi, where he is likely to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah and submit a report on the violence that took place during the panchayat elections in the state, an official said.

Among districts where repolling was announced, Murshidabad has the highest number of booths at 175, followed by Malda with 112.

Violence-hit Nadia will see repolling in 89 booths, while North and South 24 Parganas districts will witness repolling in 46 and 36 booths respectively.

At least 15 people were killed in violence during polling in the state on Saturday.

"The governor is visiting Delhi. He is supposed to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah and submit a report on the panchayat polls held in West Bengal on Saturday," the official told PTI.