West Bengal elections 2016 Phase 5: The polling has begun for 53 constituencies in the fifth and the penultimate phase of West Bengal Assembly polls recently. About 1.24 crore voters are expected to exercise their franchise today. According to the data released by the Election Commission of India, in this phase there are 63.84 lakh male voters and 60.04 lakh female voters eligible to vote.
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The centre of attraction in this phase is Bhawanipur constituency where Banerjee is pitted against former union minister Deepa Dasmunshi of Congress. The other prominent candidate in Bhawanipur is Chandra Kumar Bose, grand nephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. This phase, 53 constituencies in South Kolkata, Hooghly, and South 24 Paraganas will vote, we shall also see the Chief Minister and four scam-tainted Trinamool Congress legislators’ amit a test for the Left-Congress to prove its hold in Kolkata.
The Left Front, which has tied up with the Indian National Congress, is in the fray in 37 seats – CPI-M ( 31), All India Forward Bloc (three), Revolutionary Socialist Party (two) and Communist Party of India (one). Trinamool Congress candidate from Bhangar, Rezzak Mollah rushed to the spot and was involved in an altercation with the central forces following the incident, the officer said.
In Khanakul in Hooghly as well as in South 24-Parganas’ Canning East assembly seat, the CPI(M) accused the Trinamool of threatening its agents.
Kolkata: “My party has made country self-reliant in every sphere,”said Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday as she criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for saying Congress has not done anything for country in 60 years”. The SUCI-C had bagged one.
The alliance and the Trinamool were evenly matched in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections but the ruling party will be in trouble if the Left-Congress combine consolidates the 16.8% voteshare polled by the BJP in the general elections. In the capital Kolkata both the Bengali Bhadralok intelligentsia and the business and trading establishment have turned their back on her. Even in the countryside the sheer weight of the combined Left and Congress vote, at least on the face of it, does put the Trinamul Congress in a spot of bother.
Banerjee in spite of her hectic schedule as Chief Minister and TMC supremo has focused on her constituency.
As many as 680 companies of central forces have been deployed, besides thousands of city and state police personnel to ensure free, fair and peaceful polls.
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Clashes between the Trinamool and CPI(M) were reported in Arambag of Hooghly.
