Amid continuing violence mostly by alleged Trinamool Congress men ahead of the crucial third phase polls, about 1.37 crore voters including 71,33,978 males and 65,79,218 females will on Thursday decide the fate of 418 candidates across 62 constituencies in four districts of Bengal.
Elections to six Assembly seats in North Kolkata will also take place on Thursday. These include the highly-volatile, Beliaghata and Kashipur seats. Among other seats are Entally, Jorasanko — where the issued of the collapse of the Vivekananda flyover is keeping BJP candidate Rahul Sinha ahead — and Manicktala. Polls will be held at 16,461 polling stations in Murshidabad, Burdwan, Nadia and North Kolkata where 18,930 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) will be put to use apart from the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system.
With the last two phases witnessing good amount of violence that continued in the run up to the third phase also, with alleged Trinamool goons threatening voters and attacking their houses in order to discourage them from taking part in the polling, the Election Commission of India has made a massive security bandobast deploying 75,000 Central forces and 25,000 State policemen, sources said.
The State police will only be responsible for overseeing the voters’ queue whereas the Central Police Force (CPF) will man the booths and take part in area-domination exercise which had already started in all the four districts.
The ECI has identified 3,401 areas as vulnerable. Actions also have been taken against 4,094 history-sheeters out of 6,095 against whom complaints had been lodged by various political parties.
In Kolkata out of 1,454 seats 289 are sensitive EC sources said adding adequate security system had been made for the voters to come out and vote.
There will be 61 companies of CPF and 7,000 State police men involved in ensuring free and fair polls in Kolkata, sources said adding 67 mobile sectors, 39 quick response teams and 52 special intervention teams alongwith mobile striking forces have been deployed.
Among the political heavyweights whose fate will be sealed on Thursday are State Ministers Shasi Panja, Sadhan Pandey, former Ministers Anisur Rehman and Debesh Das and senior BJP leader and Congress leaders Rahul Sinha and Shankar Singh respectively.
Intermittent violence was reported from various parts of the four districts where polls will be held. A CPI(M) leader and former Minister’s house was allegedly attacked by Trinamool goons in Nadia while similar attacks were mounted allegedly by the State ruling party at various places at Kashipur, Beliaghata.
In the last two places in north Kolkata alleged Trinamool men made house-to-house raids threatening voters against going to cast vote, sources said. “We have brought things to the notice of the ECI which has assured appropriate action CPI(M) candidate from North Kolkata Koninika Ghosh said.
The ECI had ordered rampant checking of vehicles both in Kolkata and other places sources said. Meanwhile, the Opposition parties in highly volatile Murshidabad a border district said central forces had been taken on a trip of historical monument Hazarduari instead of being deployed.