Eight LS seats in West Bengal to go to polls in fourth phase

Kolkata: Preparations are in place for the fourth phase of polling in eight West Bengal Lok Sabha constituencies on Monday, which will decide the fate of 68 candidates in the fray.

All the eight seats — Baharampur, Krishnagar, Ranaghat (SC), Burdwan East (SC), Burdwan-Durgapur, Asansol, Bolpur (SC) and Birbhum — will see a four-cornered contest between the Trinamool Congress, the BJP, the Congress and the Left Front.

An electorate of 1,34,56,491 will decide the fate of 68 candidates in these eight constituencies, the Election Commission said.

The commission will deploy a total of 580 companies of central forces, which will cover all the polling booths in the Lok Sabha constituencies to ensure free and fair polling, election officials said.

The campaign for the eight parliamentary seats — that came to an end on Saturday evening — saw roadshows and poll meetings by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

TMC has fielded Apurba Sarkar (David) against the Congress MP, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury in the Baharampur seat.

The Left Front constituent RSP has nominated Id Mohammad, while the BJP has named Krishna Joyardar.

In Krishnagar, the TMC has fielded Mahua Moitra against BJP’s Kalyan Chaubey, a footballer. The Congress has nominated Intaj Ali Shah and the CPI(M) Shantanu Jha.

Ranaghat (SC) will see TMC’s Rupali Biswas locking horns with BJP’s Jagannath Sarkar. Congress has nominated Minati Biswas and the CPI(M) Rama Biswas.

In the Burdwan East (SC) seat, TMC’s Sunil Kumar Mondal will contest against Paresh Chandra Das of the BJP. The Congress has fielded Siddhartha Majumdar and the CPI(M) Iswar Chandra Das.

Mamtaz Sanghamita is the TMC candidate from the Burdwan-Durgapur seat against BJP’s S S Ahluwalia. The Congress has nominated Ranajit Mukherjee and the CPI(M) named Abhas Ray Chaudhuri.

In Asansol, Union minister and BJP sitting MP Babul Supriyo will contest against TMC’s celebrity candidate Moon Moon Sen. The CPI(M) has nominated Gouranga Chatterjee and the Congress Biswarup Mondal for the seat.

In the Bolpur (SC) seat, TMC’s Asit Kumar Mal will contest against Ramprasad Das of the BJP. The CPI(M) has fielded Ramchandra Dome and the Congress, Abhijit Saha.

Celebrity candidate Satabdi Roy is the TMC name from the Birbhum seat against BJP’s Dudh Kumar Mondal. The Congress has nominated Imam Hossain and the CPI(M) named Rezaul Karim for the seat.

The polling personnel have already left for the 15,277 booths in the eight parliamentary constituencies.

Besides general election observers and expenditure observers, the poll panel has for the first time deployed a special police observer and a special observer in the state.

In another first, VVPAT will be used in all the polling booths along with the EVMs, EC sources said.