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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Violence mars voting in W Bengal

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MUMBAI/KOLKATA: A voter turnout of 64 per cent was witnessed at 72 Lok Sabha constituencies spread across nine states which went to the polls on Monday in the fourth phase.


The turnout in 2014 in these seats was 61.48 per cent.


West Bengal took the centre stage in the fourth phase of a staggered general election on Monday after clashes broke out between supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party and a regional bloc.


The polling percentage improved in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar while it was less in West Bengal and Odisha and marginally less in Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand compared to the last election. It was somewhat better in Rajasthan.


An official with the Election Commission of India said paramilitary forces fired a blank round inside a polling station in another constituency in the state after a scuffle between voters and troops, who were demanding that mobile phones be kept aside while voting, as rules state.


There were no immediate reports of any poll-related injuries in West Bengal, where at least one person was killed and three injured during the third phase of voting last week.


The election, the world’s biggest democratic exercise with about 900 million voters, started on April 11 with Modi in the lead amid heightened tension with long-time rival Pakistan.


The last phase of voting is on May 19. There are a total of 545 seats in parliament’s lower house.


The BJP is in a direct, and sometimes bloody, fight in West Bengal with Trinamool, whose chief, Mamata Banerjee, is one of Modi’s biggest critics and a possible prime ministerial candidate.


The BJP holds only two of West Bengal’s 42 parliamentary seats.


“We have asked for central forces at all polling booths so that free and fair elections can be held in the state,” said Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, a minister in Modi’s cabinet, referring to federal paramilitary police.


Modi told a rally in West Bengal that at least 40 Trinamool state lawmakers were in touch with him and would leave the party after votes are counted on May 23.


Trinamool accused Modi of attempting to horse-trade, telling him: “Nobody will go with you”.


The party also alleged that federal security forces were trying to influence voters to back the BJP wherever they were deployed.


Maidul Islam, a professor of political science at Kolkata’s Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, said the stakes were high for both parties with Trinamool hoping to be part of a federal government coalition.


In Jammu and Kashmir state’s Anantnag constituency, which is voting in three phases due to security concerns, paramilitary forces fired teargas and pellets to disperse youth throwing stones at them, a police officer said.


Four persons suffered pellet injuries, of which two had been hospitalised in Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir, the officer said, declining to be identified since he was not authorised to speak to the media.


More than 128 million people are eligible to vote in this round of the seven-phase election held across 72 seats in nine states.


The election commission said about half of them had voted by mid-afternoon.


— Reuters


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