‘Nothing amiss in Bengal’s late turnout surge’

KOLKATA: The Election Commission insists that there’s no abnormality in the sudden rise in voter turnout during the first phase of polls on April 4. Rather, they are happy with the “huge turnout“.

The latest figures on polling percentage issued by the Election Commission on Wednesday show a 8.54% voters’ surge only in Purulia’s Joypur constituency over the provisional data given by the West Bengal’s CEO office. Going by this data, on an average 73 people were standing in front of 255 polling stations under Joypur constituency at 6.30 pm — two and a half hours after polling ended on Monday.

Additional CEO Dibyendu Sarkar said, “The data initially given was provisional data and there is nothing abnormal in the surge. We had provided the provisional information on the basis of data collected by us at that point of time. There was connectivity problem in some areas and we didn’t get the information from there. After we received all the information, we compiled the same and sent it to the Election Commission.”