Brisk polling much on the line of the other phases wasrecorded in the fifth phase of polling in West Bengal where 45 constituenciesacross six districts including Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Aklimpong, Nadia, North24 Parganas and East Burdwan are going for the polls on Saturday. Altogether1,13,73,307 voters will exercise their franchise in 15,789 polling stationsspread across six districts.
According to the first four hours data released by theElection Commission, the six districts cumulatively recorded a pollingpercentage of 36% with Jalpaiguri recording the highest percentage followed byEast Burdwan and Nadia. Kalimpong recorded the lowest percentage of 14 per centand Darjeeling a shade better with 14.88 per cent. North 24 Parganas recorded apolling percentage of 15.3.
So far no major incidents were reported as the ElectionCommission is extremely cautious after Sitalkuchi incident where four personswere killed in the firing of the central forces in the last phase and has madea huge security arrangement for the fifth round of election.
Poling is being held in 16 constituencies in North 24Parganas, 8 constituencies each in East Burdwan and Nadia, 7 constituencies inJalpaiguri, 5 in Darjeeling and I in Kalimpong where 319 candidates will testtheir political future. The phase is likely to be very important because of the45 constituencies that are going for the poll, the Trinamool got 23 seats andthe BJP shared the rest of the 22 in respect to the Lok Sabha polls in 2019.
The Election Commission has made an adequate arrangementto avoid any kind of untoward incident and has deployed 853 companies ofcentral forces for today's elections.
The highest deployment of 283 companies will be in North24 Parganas with 69 companies each for Barasat Police District and BarrackporePolice Commissionerate, 107 companies for Basirhat and 46 companies forBidhannagar. There will be 122 companies for seven seats in Jalpaiguridistrict, 68 companies for four seats in Darjeeling, 53 companies for Siliguriand 21 companies for Kalimpong with 301 booths. There will be 151 companies forthe eight constituencies in Nadia district and 155 companies for 8constituencies in East Burdwan.