Bengal panchayat elections: Repolling underway in 696 booths, no major incident reported

Kolkata, Jul 10 (PTI) No major incident was reported as fresh polling was underway on Monday at 696 booths in 19 districts of West Bengal where voting for the panchayat elections was declared void, officials said.

The repolling was ordered by the State Election Commission on Sunday evening amid allegations of tampering with ballot boxes and the violence that left 15 people dead, they said.

The repolling started at 7 am amid tight security with four central forces personnel deployed in each booth, besides state police. Till 11 am, 10.9 per cent voter turnout was recorded.

Voting started late in a few booths as ballot boxes did not reach on time, officials said.

These booths will be given extra time to complete the polling, they said.

“No major untoward incidents were reported from the districts where repolling is underway. A couple of stray incidents happened and those were managed by the police,” an SEC official said.

A road was blocked at Tehatta in Nadia in the morning but it was later cleared by the police. Voters demonstrated outside a booth at Mayna in Purba Medinipur district, he said.

The voting is scheduled to continue till 5 pm.

Among the districts where repolling was being held, violence-hit Murshidabad has the highest number of booths at 175, followed by Malda with 109, officials said.

Repolling was also being held at 89 booths in Nadia, followed by Cooch Behar (53), North 24 Parganas (46), Uttar Dinajpur (42), South 24 Parganas (36), Purba Medinipur (31) and Hooghly (29), they said.

No repolling was ordered in Darjeeling, Jhargram and Kalimpong districts, they said.

The decision for repolling was announced after reviewing reports of violence and tampering with ballot boxes and ballot papers, they added.

Polling was held on Saturday in over 61,000 booths for the three-tier panchayat elections. In several places, ballot boxes were looted, set on fire and thrown in ponds, leading to violence.

A total 5.67 crore people living in the state’s rural areas were eligible to decide the fate of 2.06 lakh candidates in 73,887 seats of the panchayat system.