75% turnout in landmark civic polls in Bengal

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Contrary to earlier fears, the elections to 81 civic bodies across West Bengal, including the prestigious Kolkata Municipal Corporation, passed off peacefully on the whole on Sunday. There was no poll-related casualties although voting was spread over 16 districts, including some volatile ones like South 24-Parganas, North 24-Parganas,

Hooghly and Murshidabad. “Barring some minor and isolated incidents of violence, the polls passed off peacefully,” state election commissioner Mira Pande said.
These polls have assumed considerable significance because they are being regarded as a dress rehearsal for next year’s Assembly elections. The results of Sunday’s vote, which will be announced on Wednesday, June 2, will allow the ruling Left Front a chance to determine if it has recovered any of the ground it had lost in last year’s Lok Sabha polls, and the Trinamul Congress too will know if the pro-change wave it generated in 2009 still sweeps the state or not. Significantly, neither Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee nor CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose addressed the media after the voting ended on Sunday.
An exit poll conducted by a local television channel claimed that the Trinamul Congress was all set to wrest the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the municipality of neighbouring Salt Lake from the Left Front. Of the 141-ward Kolkata civic body, the exit poll projected the Trinamul Congress as likely to win 78 seats, the Left Front 54, the Congress seven and the BJP two seats.
Despite the scorching heat on Sunday, a high voter turnout was witnessed both in Kolkata and in the districts. The average percentage across the state was 75. The West Bengal State Election Commission said about 65 to 70 per cent votes were polled in Kolkata area, while the turnout was 88 per cent in Murshidabad and Cooch Behar, followed by 85 per cent in West Midnapore, 84 per cent in East Midnapore, 82 per cent in Purulia, 80 per cent in Birbhum, 75 per cent in North 24-Parganas and 72 per cent in Malda. At Salt Lake, the voting percentage was 69. “The polling percentage is more or less the same as that in the last municipal elections,” Ms Pande said.
One person received a bullet injury in his leg when an “apparently trigger-happy” Tripura policeman opened three rounds of fire at a booth in ward number 101 of the KMC. Seventy-two persons were arrested for various incidents across the state.
The election was held in 10,698 polling booths in 81 civic bodies from 7 am to 3 pm. The state administration had made elaborate security arrangements to ensure peaceful polling, deploying over 56,000 security personnel. Forty-eight companies of Central paramilitary forces and 20 companies of other state forces were extensively used to guard booths and for mobile patrolling, besides of course personnel of both the Kolkata police and the state force.
Inspector general (law and order) Surajit Kar Purakayasthya said: “A clash took place between the police and Trinamul Congress workers in Jamuria municipality in Burdwan. A police vehicle was torched.” Nine persons, including two policemen and a Trinamul candidate, received minor injuries in that clash. Trinamul supporters also clashed with the police in some wards of Hooghly.
Ms Pande said there had been a number of technical snags reported with the EVMs, and repolling has so far been ordered in two booths in the KMC area.
She added that there were no major complaints from political parties, apart from a few minor ones about booth-jamming. Meanwhile, a presiding officer, Arjun Mullick, who had fallen sick on Saturday, died of a heart attack on Sunday.