By IANS,
Kolkata : Over 70 percent of voters exercised their franchise in West Bengal Sunday as polling for 81 civic agencies overall proceeded peacefully marred only by sporadic violence in the last trial of strength for parties ahead of next year’s assembly election.
The polling was held in the shadow of Friday’s Gyaneshwari Express rail disaster that claimed 145 lives in West Midnapore district, overshadowing all other issues over the last two days.
In Kolkata, 65-70 percent of the voters participated in the polling process to elect their representatives in 141 wards.
There were long queues of voters outside the polling booths since the morning, though malfunctioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) affected polling at several places.
Voting continued even after the scheduled poll time got over at 3 p.m. as people had lined up outside booths in large numbers.
Among those who cast their votes here were top Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader and Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Trinamool Congress supremo and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Three people were injured when miscreants hurled bombs at a booth in West Kolkata’s Metiabruz while a youth sustained a bullet wound on his leg after a Tripura police constable suddenly resorted to firing.
“The constable has been placed under suspension. We are interrogating him to find out why he fired,” said a senior police officer.
Activists of the CPI-M and the Trinamool Congress also clashed in Beleghata in the city, stalling the voting.
An election official fell ill and died in a booth in central Kolkata.
Among the 81 civic agencies in the state, the Left Front currently controls 54, including the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
In the state’s districts, where elections were held to 80 municipal bodies, 70-75 percent of voters exercised their voting right while 23 people were arrested on various charges like violence and disturbing the poll process.
Though the situation was largely peaceful, trouble broke out between the ruling CPI-M cadres and main opposition Trinamool Congress workers in Tarakeshwar of Hooghly, Jamuria of Burdwan, and Naihati in North 24 Parganas districts.
The security forces had to resort to baton charge to control the situation.
The state’s ruling Left Front chairman, Biman Bose congratulated the voters for the peaceful polls despite provocation from the opposition parties.
The Trinamool Congress alleged that in many civic agency areas the CPI-M goons tried to prevent people from voting.
Union minister and Trinamool leader Mukul Roy also expressed apprehension of EVM tampering by the ruling party. “An unprecedented number of EVMs gave way today. We have doubts that some malpractices took place,” he said.
Around 85 lakh (8.5 million) people in 1,792 wards across 81 civic agencies, including the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, were eligible to exercise their franchise Sunday.
Before the train crash that claimed 145 lives by Sunday, issues like early assembly election, political violence, conspiracy theories for fomenting communal trouble, functioning of the railway ministry (a central government portfolio held by Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee) and Maoist activities dominated the campaign speeches.
Drowned in the political cacophony were civic issues – water supply, roads, sanitation, maintenance of parks and pollution – that are of concern to people.
The elections are being held a year after the Lok Sabha polls that saw the Trinamool Congress-Congress combine along with the Socialist Unity Centre of India decimate the Left Front.
But the political equations have substantially changed this time round.
A striking feature of these election was the failure of the Trinamool and the Congress to clinch a seat-sharing deal. Both parties contested the polls by themselves in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and almost all the municipalities spread across the state.
The Trinamool Congress-Congress combine bagged 27 Lok Sabha seats out of 42 in the state in 2009. The Left Front was reduced from 35 seats in 2004 to 15.