Polling percentage – over time between 11 am to 5 pm – in Khardah, gosaba, Shantipur And Dinhata registered during the assembly elections in March-April did not deviate completely from the same, though the number at 5 pm was slightly less. Till 5 pm, Shantipur recorded the highest voter turnout of 76.1% and Kharda the lowest 63.9%.
Aryadeep Sinha, son of Trinamool Congress leader and former Khardah candidate late Kajal Sinha, was allegedly assaulted by personal security guards of BJP candidate Joy Saha, leading to a ruckus in Bandipur area of the constituency.
There was a ruckus in front of the Ideal Academy polling booth in Bandipur in the afternoon when Saha had an encounter with a man allegedly carrying another person’s voter card. Aryadeep alleged from his private hospital bed that central forces on duty lathi-charged those standing in the queue, injuring several. “The BJP candidate was falsely accusing a person of being a Bangladeshi voter,” he said.
The Election Commission dismissed Saha’s complaint as “baseless”. However, it also rejected the allegations of lathi-charge by the central forces and held that the guard of the BJP candidate was at fault.
Earlier in the day, Trinamool’s Khardah candidate Shobhandeb Chattopadhyay complained that the central forces were asking voters for double vaccination certificates. “Who are they? The presiding officers are there to take decisions,” he said.
Former CPM MLA from Baranagar Tanmay Bhattacharya also suffered injuries in stone pelting on his car near Khardah station. The CPI(M) leader alleged that the party’s polling agents could not reach most of the booths in Tegharia and Mahispota.
In the Dinhata constituency, a BJP polling agent posted at a booth was brutally thrashed – and later taken to a sub-divisional hospital – after Trinamool supporters protested an alleged “proxy vote” by Trinamool supporters. BJP’s Dinhata candidate Ashok Mandal alleged that Trinamool supporters barracked him when he went to the booth to cast his vote.
Union Minister Nisith Pramanik accused Trinamool candidate Udayan Guha of trying to intimidate voters. Guha denied the allegation. Trinamool leader Partha Pratim Roy asked central forces to “behave with voters” who were “scared” after the April 10 firing at Seetalkuchi, in which four people were killed.
Complaints of intimidation of voters were also received in Shantipur seat. BJP candidate Niranjan Biswas could not persuade the mother of a party agent to send her son to the polling booth in the morning. He locked his son in a room after the family received threats the night before. Biswas claimed that another BJP agent’s house was set on fire. No major crisis has been reported in Gosaba constituency of South 24 Parganas.
With inputs from Sanjib Chakraborty, Ashish Poddar, Pinak Priya Bhattacharya and Monotosh Chakraborty
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