Campaigning for the second phase of West Bengal Assembly polls, involving 56 seats in seven districts, ended on Friday.
About 45 seats in north Bengal — five in Alipurduar, seven in Jalpaiguri, nine in north Dinajpur, six each in Darjeeling and South Dinajpur and 12 in Malda — are going to polls on Sunday.
The only south Bengal district that is going to polls in this phase is Birbhum with 11 constituencies.
ADVERTISEMENT
Over 1.21 crore voters across 13,645 polling stations will decide the fate of 383 candidates. Among 383 candidates, 33 are women.
The phase has some important names like Indian football icon and Trinamool Congress candidate Baichung Bhutia, contesting from Siliguri.
ADVERTISEMENT
He is pitted against former Minister and CPI(M) heavyweight Asok Bhattacharya. Sujapur in Malda district, where relatives of Congress stalwart A.B.A.
Ghani Khan Choudhury are pitted against each other, also throws up an interesting contest.
Other notable candidates include North Development Minister Gautam Deb (Dabgram-Pulbari), Food Processing Minister Krishnendu Narayan Choudhury English Bazar) and BJP’s actress candidate Locket Chatterjee (Mayureswar).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Trinamool Congress supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee were among those who hit the campaign trail.
CRPF companiesThe EC will deploy close to 800 companies of the Central Police Force (CPF) during the second phase polls.
“About 400 companies of CPF will come from Assam while another 400 companies are already deployed in the State,” Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi said.
He said 15,000 CPF personnel would be deployed on mobile duty.