West Bengal Elections: 80% polling till 5 PM

West Bengal  recorded 80 per cent  turnout on Monday in the first phase of assembly elections, which the Election Commission said was "by and large peaceful", with no reports of violence-related death or injury.

Though high, the voting percentage was lower than that recorded in the 2011 assembly polls in the same seats. "The figures are till 5 PM. With queues of voters still present outside polling stations, the figures could go up," Deputy Election Commissioner Sandeep Saxena told a media briefing here.

Many of these seats are located in areas which had earlier witnessed Maoist violence. Election Commission sources said there was no report of any violence or disturbance from anywhere.
Polling will be held in another 31 seats in second part of the first phase to be held on April 11.

Of the 18 constituencies which went to polls today, 13 are located in tribal Jangalmahal spread over Bankura, Purulia and West Midnapore districts. Polling in these areas ended at 4 PM although queues were seen in front of many booths. In the remaining 5 seats, polling continued till 6 PM. People came out in large numbers since early morning to cast their votes, EC sources said.

"There were some issues with EVMs in some booths which were immediately addressed and polling went on smoothly. We got some other complaints also and they have been addressed," Additional Chief Electoral Officer Dibyendu Sarkar told PTI. Polling began at 7 AM under tight security. Two choppers conducted regular sorties as part of aerial surveillance.

Voting was held in 4,945 polling stations out of which 1,962 were classified as critical by EC. Voter Verifiable Audit Trails (VVAT) system was used in 562 polling stations. A key candidate in this phase was Tribal Affairs Minister Sukumar Hansda from Jhargram.