Bengal Election Phase 2 Voting LIVE: Voting is taking place today for the second and final phase of the West Bengal Assembly Elections. Voting for the 142 seats of the second phase began at 7 am. Crowds of voters started gathering at polling stations from 6 am. The toughest contest in the second phase is going to be the Bhawanipur Assembly seat. CM Mamata Banerjee is contesting from this seat. BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari is contesting against Mamata. Suvendu had defeated Mamata from Nandigram in 2021.
The BJP candidate in Panihati who is also the mother of the RG Kar rape-murder victim cast her vote today. “I feel there is a problem with the press button on the EVM. It is taking time to press it, I will inform the officer…,” she was quoted as saying by news agency.
In the second phase, a total of 3,21,73,837 voters will cast their votes in 142 assembly seats across seven districts. These include 1,64,35,627 men, 1,57,37,418 women and 792 third gender voters. 41,001 polling stations have been set up for voting, where webcasting arrangements have been made for every booth. 2,321 companies of central security forces have been deployed to maintain law and order. The highest number of 273 companies have been deployed in Kolkata.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged people to cast their vote today as he wrote on X, “I urge all those who are voting today to cast their votes in record numbers to make our democracy more vibrant and participatory. In particular, the women and youth power of West Bengal must turn out in large numbers to exercise their voting rights”.
The second phase of the elections will see a total of 1,448 candidates, including 220 women. A total of 32.1 million voters will exercise their franchise. The Bhangar constituency has the highest number of candidates, at 19, while the Goghat constituency in Hooghly district has the fewest, at 5. India’s nodal election body, the Election Commission of India, is inspiring people to cast their votes through its social media posts.
Several prominent leaders are contesting in the second phase of elections. These include Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee (Bhabanipur), Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari (Bhabanipur), Minister of State Sujit Bose (Bidhannagar), Firhad Hakim (Kolkata Port), Jyotipriya Mallick (Howrah), Bratya Basu (Dum Dum), Sovandeb Chattopadhyay (Ballygunge), and the BJP’s Arjun Singh (Noapara), Swapan Dasgupta (Rashbehari), and Rudranil Ghosh (Shibpur). The CPI(M)’s Meenakshi Mukherjee (Uttarpara), Dipsita Dhar (Dum Dum North), Kalatan Dasgupta (Panihati), and the ISF’s Naushad Siddiqui (Bhangar) are also in the fray.
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