Nearly 32.1 million voters will decide the fate of 1,448 candidates on Wednesday when 142 constituencies in seven districts in West Bengal go to the polls in the second phase of the Assembly elections.
Of the 294 Assembly seats in the state, 152 constituencies went to the polls in the first phase on April 23. The seats that go to the polls on Tuesday are largely in the Trinamool Congress stronghold of south Bengal.
This marks the completion of voting for the current election season in West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Puducherry. Votes for all five regions will be counted on May 4.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has held 19 rallies in Bengal since March 15, and Home Minister Amit Shah was in the state from April 21-27. All the chief ministers of the BJP-ruled states and seven ministers campaigned extensively.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held 111 rallies across the state, with her last campaign event at her assembly headquarters in Bhabanipur in south Kolkata, where she was facing a challenge from Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari. Opposition leaders like Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav campaigned for the elections. TMC.
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Apart from the TMC and the BJP, the Congress and the Left Front are also contesting in most of the constituencies.
In 2011, when Mamata Banerjee came to power and ousted the 34-year-old Left Front government, the TMC won 117 of the 142 seats that will go to the polls on Tuesday. The BJP – which was a marginal force in the state – did not win a single seat at that time.
In the 2016 House of Representatives elections, the TMC consolidated its position further, winning 125 seats. In 2021, the TMC got 123 seats and the BJP got 18 seats. The Indian Secular Front won one seat.
The seats going to polls include Matua strongholds in North 24 Parganas, Nadia, Kolkata and its suburbs, border areas, industrial belt and riverine Sunderbans.
Of the 41,000 polling stations where voting will take place on Tuesday, about 14,000 are in urban areas. Of these centers, 8,845 centers are run entirely by women, and 13 centers are run by poll workers with disabilities.
107 Assembly constituencies, 34 are reserved for Scheduled Castes and one is reserved for Scheduled Tribes.
The intense special review had a significant impact in the areas that would go to the polls in the second phase. More than 50,000 names were deleted from Bhabanipur alone in the three stages of SIR – draft list, final list and arbitration.
Political clashes, primarily between the TMC and the BJP, were reported from multiple pockets on Sunday and Monday before the curtain comes down on the election campaign for the second phase on Monday. More than 100 crude bombs were recovered.
The Election Commission said the money, liquor and jewellery, among other items, were worth more than $Rs 500 crore has been seized since March 15, when the election dates were announced and the Model Code of Conduct came into force. In 2021, incentives worth approx $339 crores were seized.
“We are more prepared for the second phase of elections compared to the first phase because the space in the second phase is smaller. In the first phase there were 152 seats spread over 16 districts. In the second phase there are 142 seats (spread over eight districts). We will have better control over the districts this time. We have a tried and tested mechanism. We will bring in some changes. We will hold free, fair and violence-free elections. Even before the first phase, some isolated incidents have taken place. We will have some changes. We will hold elections that are free, fair and violence-free. Even before the first phase, some sporadic incidents took place. Manoj Kumar Agarwal said, Chief Electoral Officer in West Bengal: “It was quiet, but polling day was largely peaceful.”
