The campaigning for the fifth phase of the West Bengal Assembly polls ended on Thursday. The fate of political heavyweights including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will be decided in this phase when polling will be held in 53 constituencies in South 24 Parganas, Kolkata and Hooghly districts on Saturday.
A total of 1.2 crore voters will decide the fate of 349 candidates. The Election Commission has deployed six police observers in the districts. Polling will be held at 14,642 polling stations.
“The Election Commission has identified 2,685 vulnerable hamlets in South 24 Parganas, 1,605 in Kolkata South and 1,008 in Hooghly,” Additional Chief Electoral Officer Dibyendu Sarkar said.
The phase will see many star candidates battling for the public mandate. In the Bhawanipore seat, Ms. Banerjee is pitted against former Union Minister Deepa Dasmunsi of the Congress and the BJP’s Chandra Kumar Bose, who is the grandnephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Ms. Banerjee currently holds the seat.
One of the most politically significant seats in the fifth phase will be Singur in Hooghly where the Trinamool’s movement against forced land acquisition for a Tata Motors factory played a key role in ousting the Left Front government. Here CPI(M) candidate Rabin Deb is pitted against senior Trinamool leader Rabindranath Bhattacharya.
Among the heavyweights in the fifth phase are many Ministers in the Mamata Cabinet.
