West Bengal: 76% vote in mini-assembly polls, some pockets see turbulence

KOLKATA: Bengal reported 76.5% voting till 5pm on Sunday to elect 2,171 councillors across 108 municipalities, dubbed as the mini-assembly polls. The state poll body and police received around 1,000 complaints in which 51 people were arrested and another 787 taken into preventive custody.
Four BJP candidates were among those arrested for breaking 12 EVMs.The state election commission (SEC) said among the 17,600 EVMs, around 82 had to be replaced.
Two cops were injured in bomb splinters as stray viol-ence was reported from pockets — Dhulian in Murshidabad and Bhatpara and Kamarhati in North 24 Parganas. A BJP candidate was injured in Konnagar. Kamarhati remained on the edge all through the day, even eclipsing the traditional trouble spots like Titagarh, Barrackpore and North Dum Dum.
Bengal DGP Manoj Mal-aviya said the polls were peaceful, barring minor incidents. BJP has called a 6am-6pm bandh on Monday in protest. After a BJP delegation met the governor, Raj Bhavan asked state election commissioner Saurabh Das to brief governor Jagdeep Dhankar on the situation by 10am on Monday.
Das should be “fully updated” on developments in the poll process, which “prima facie indicates failure of democracy”, a Raj Bhavan release said. Das did not speak to the media.
D GP Malaviya, in a postpoll briefing, said: “We had clear instructions to ensure that people could cast their votes peacefully. That was done.” The DGP said every complaint was attended to and there were no grievous injuries or fatalities. Responding to questions on police inaction, he said, “You have seen polls before with a significant number of (central) forces. You have seen the polls today. You can gauge the difference yourself.”
Around 12 EVMs were damaged by party candidates or their agents, the commission said, in which four BJP candidates have been arrested. They include two in Bhatpara, Pramod Singh and Sanjay Singh.
Nine journalists were also injured across the state during the violence. For the Trinamool, the polls will be a bid to consolidate its grip. For BJP, this polls will be a battle for survival. Little seems to have gone right for it in Bengal since May 2021.
For CPM and Congress, it will be a test of whether anti-Trinamool votes have started coming back to them and not the BJP. The first two hours saw brisk voting with over 15 lakh voters out of 96.5 lakh exercising their franchise. By 1 pm, almost 50% votes were cast.
East Midnapore recorded the highest voting — 84.2%. The lowest polling was at Darjeeling, which recorded 54.2% voting. SI Jayanta Biswas was injured in Kamarhati when bomb splinters hit him. At 4.30 pm, a BJP team of Shishir Bajoria and Agnimitra Paul met SEC and demanded repoll in 108 municipalities with external observers and central forces.
A little later, a BJP delegation met the governor. After that, BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar declared a 12-hour bandh. TMC strongly opposed the bandh call.