West Bengal Election 2021 Campaign for fourth phase ends

Representative image. PTI

The curtains were drawn in the fourth phase of the high-decibel election campaign, for 44 Assembly seats scheduled in five districts of West Bengal on April 10 (Saturday), ended at 5 pm on Thursday.

A total of 1,15,81,022 voters, including 58,82,514 men, 56,98,218 women, and 290 members of the third gender, will decide the fate of 373 candidates in Saturday’s elections in constituencies spread over Howrah (Part II), South 24 Parganas (Part III), Hooghly (Part II) in South Bengal and Alipurduar and Coochbehar in North Bengal.

The elections will be held between 7:00 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. in 15,940 polling stations. At stake are nine Assembly constituencies in Howrah, eleven in South 24 Parganas, five in Alipurduar, nine in Coochbehar, and ten in Hooghly.

According to All India radio all COVID-19 protocols that include the use of masks, thermal tests will be followed during the voting on Saturday.

Among those whose fate will be decided at the meetings are former Bengal captain Ranji Manoj Tiwary, Shibpur TMC candidate, acting MLA, and state education minister Behala Paschim Partha Chatterjee, and BJP central minister Babul Supriyo who he has clashed with the state sports minister. Arup Biswas for the Tollygunge seat.

Ratna Chatterjee, the wife of the former city mayor and fire minister Sovan Chatterjee, who left Mamata Banerjee’s TMC to join the BJP for a short period, faces off against actress-turned-politician from BJP Payel Sarkar for the seat of Behala Purbo.

Former state Forestry Minister Rajib Banerjee, who moved to the BJP recently, is contesting Domjur, while BJP MP and actress Locket Chatterjee is contesting the Chinsurah polls in Hooghly district.

The Sanyukta Morcha comprising the Left Front, Congress, and the ISF have submitted mostly young faces for the fourth phase of the vote. The leader of the CPI (M), Sujan Chakraborty, is one of the few veterans selected by the left for this phase of the elections.

BJP’s star activists included Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Minister Amit Shah, JP Nadda Party Chairman Smriti Irani, UP Prime Minister Yogi Adityanath, as well as former Bollywood star Mithun. Chakraborty, who traversed the state trying to build support for the saffron party.

The BJP leadership targeted the TMC government, its supreme and chief minister Mamata Banerjee, his nephew Abhishek Banerjee, accusing them of corruption and “appeasement policies” and claimed that their “khela shesh hobe“(the game will end).

Modi and Shah promised voters the early implementation of Ayushman Bharat’s scheme, Prime Minister Kisan Samman Nidhi, as well as the implementation of the seventh scale of pay commissions for state government employees if they vote for power in West Bengal.

Banerjee, his nephew, and party MP Abhishek were among the star TMC activists who stepped up their attack on the BJP-led central government over the recent rise in gasoline, gasoline, and diesel prices, as well as plans to divest a large number of plants. Government-run PSUs.

Banerjee also accused the central police forces of harassing and intimidating voters in Bengal and urged voters to “gherao” in case security officers prevented them from voting.

The fierce TMC leader during a public demonstration in Tarakeswar in the Hooghly district on April 3 also appealed to the minority community not to split their votes. This prompted the Election Commission of India (ECI) to issue a show of cause notice to Banerjee for demanding votes on communal grounds.

Taking note of the “delicate” situation in the 44 electoral districts of the Assembly in Bengal, the ICE has decided to deploy at least 789 CAPF companies. Cooch Behar will have the highest deployment with 187 deployed companies.