Online Desk :
The eighth and final phase of voting in West Bengal, India has begun today. Voting is going on in 35 centers of 4 districts including North Kolkata following the hygiene rules amid the second wave of coronavirus that devastated entire India.
According to Indian media sources, a total of 853 companies of central forces have been deployed for the security of the polls.
Like the previous phase, from the use of sanitizer to masks and gloves have been made mandatory for everyone in this phase too. But in this phase, more importance has been given to maintaining physical distance in the voting line.
According to media sources in West Bengal, elections are being held in Birbhum, Malda, Murshidabad and North Kolkata on Thursday. Of these, Murshidabad and Birbhum have 11 seats each, Malda has 6 seats and North Kolkata has 7 seats. The Election Commission has taken overall measures to make the voting peaceful.
In the last phase, the Election Commission does not want to have any lack of security for fair elections in 11 constituencies of Birbhum. There are 3,908 polling stations in this district. Of these, 1,175 polling stations have been detected as “highly sensitive” by the election commission.
The central forces of 224 companies have been deployed to make the election in Birbhum fair and free. 219 emergency response teams of the security forces have been kept ready. Additional 11 magistrates have been appointed in the district.
In the 2016 assembly elections, the Trinamool and the Left-Congress alliance won 17 of these seats. The Left won 3 seats, the Congress 13 and the coalition-backed non-party candidate won 1 seat. In that assembly vote, the BJP candidate won in one constituency of Malda.
However, the picture changed a lot in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Trinamool was leading in 19 out of 35 seats in 4 districts. The BJP emerged as their main opponent who was leading in 11 seats. The Congress was leading in 5 assembly constituencies.
