Violence Reported in West Bengal Elections; TMC and BJP Lodge Complaints

Intermittent instances of violence are emerging amidst the ongoing elections in West Bengal, where voting is underway for three seats – Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, and Alipurduar. As of 10 am, both the TMC and BJP had filed numerous complaints with the Election Commission regarding violence in the Cooch Behar Lok Sabha constituency.

In another incident, in the Naxal-affected Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, a Barel Grenade Launcher (UBGL) cell explosion occurred approximately 500 meters away from a polling booth in the Galgam area of Bijapur during ongoing elections. According to reports, a security personnel member, who was part of a team conducting area domination exercises, sustained injuries in the blast.

The other states and Union Territories where elections are being held in the first phase today include Arunachal Pradesh (2 seats), Assam (5 seats), Bihar (4 seats), Chhattisgarh (1 seat), Madhya Pradesh (6 seats), Maharashtra (5 seats), Manipur (2 seats), Meghalaya (2 seats), Mizoram (1 seat), Nagaland (1 seat), Rajasthan (12 seats), Sikkim (1 seat), Tamil Nadu (39 seats), Tripura (1 seat), Uttar Pradesh (8 seats), Uttarakhand (5 seats), Andaman and Nicobar Islands (1 seat), Jammu and Kashmir (1 seat), Lakshadweep (1 seat), and Puducherry (1 seat).

In the first phase, at least 16.63 crore voters are eligible to cast their votes at 1.87 lakh polling stations. There are a total of 18 lakh polling officials deployed on poll duty. The eligible voters consist of 8.4 crore men, 8.23 crore women, and 11,371 third-gender electors. Among the 3.51 crore young voters aged 20-29 years, there are 35.67 lakh first-time voters registered to cast their votes in the first phase.