Nearly 72 per cent votes were polled peacefully till 4 p.m. on Thursday in the first of the five-phase Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal, which will determine the electoral fate of 47 candidates.
“On an average 71.54 per cent of the 60,33,310 voters cast their votes in the first nine hours of polling in the four Lok Sabha constituencies of Coochbehar, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling in north Bengal,” state’s Chief Electoral Officer Sunil Gupta said in Kolkata.
The voting was peaceful except for some stray incidents and a few EVMs being replaced, he said.
The Special Observer from the ECI for the state Audhir Kumar Rakesh said, “Everything is OK. I have not received any adverse report from any observer.”
“We have not yet received report of any major incident on disruption of law and order or complaint of booth jamming or violation of the Model Code of Conduct,” Mr. Gupta said.
Arrangements were made for web casting and live monitoring of sensitive areas amid tight security provided by central forces which were more than double the 2011 Assembly election.
