Kolkata: The polling for the by-election in Sagardighi assembly constituency in Murshidabad district of West Bengal started on Monday morning under blanket security cover of the central armed forces personnel.
Barring stray incidents, the polling process had been more or less peaceful in the first two hours.
Central armed forces personnel have been deployed at all the 246 polling booths. The fate of nine candidates contesting in the bypoll will be decided by around 2,50,000 voters.
Each polling booth has been kept under CCTV coverage. The 246 polling booths have been divided in 22 sectors, and one quick response team has been assigned for each of these sectors.
The contest in the Sagardighi by-poll is triangular this time between Debasish Bandopadhyay of Trinamool Congress, Bayron Biswas (Congress) and BJP’s Dilip Saha. The Left Front is not contesting in the by-poll and instead supporting the Congress candidate.
The by-poll was necessitated following the sudden demise of erstwhile Trinamool Congress MLA Subrata Saha on December 29 last year. He was a three-time TMC legislator from the Sagardighi Assembly constituency in Murshidabad district, securing consecutive victories in 2011, 2016 and 2021. In 2021, he got elected defeating BJP’s Mafuja Khatun by a margin of 50,216 votes.
Stray incidences of irregularities were reported from Sagardighi since the beginning of the polls.
Till 9 a.m., the polling percentage has been recorded at 13.37 per cent as per the records of the office of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO0, West Bengal.
At booth number 71 and 75, minor incidents were reported on Monday morning following allegations of outsiders jamming the boths. However, the situation was brought under control following the arrival of quick response team members escorted by central armed forces personnel.
–IANS