Bengal: Campaigning ends for bypoll

Voting in both the constituencies will begin at 7am on Tuesday (April 12) and end at 5pm, an Election Commission (EC) official said.

The Ballygunge segment has a total of 300 booths while Asansol has 2,102. As many as 680 booths have been declared as ‘sensitive’ in Asansol, Ballygunge has 23 such booths. As a security measure, police are checking all the entry and exit points in the two constituencies. The EC has transferred two police officers in Asansol after the BJP alleged that the by-elections could be rigged. A delegation comprising opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari has lodged a complaint with the EC observers in this regard.

A total of 133 companies of central forces will be deployed in the two constituencies – 70 in Ballygunge and the remaining in Asansol – while there will also be live webcast from all the booths in the assembly constituency and 51 per cent of the booths in the Lok Sabha segment.

No untoward incident was reported during the campaigning that started in the first week of March with central forces regularly conducting flag marches in sensitive pockets of the two constituencies.

While 10 candidates are in the fray in Ballygunge and eight in Asansol, the main fight is likely to be between the TMC and BJP, while CPI(M) and Congress have also put up their nominees in both the seats.

The by-elections were necessitated as Babul Supriyo resigned as MP of Asansol after joining the TMC from the BJP, while state minister Subrata Mukherjee, who represented Ballygunge, died last year. The TMC has fielded actor and former Union minister Shatrughan Sinha against BJP MLA Agnimitra Paul.

In Ballygunge, TMC has  fielde Supriyo against BJP’s Keya Ghosh and CPI(M)’s Saira Shah Halim.