West Bengal: Over 48% voter turnout in 7 LS constituencies till 1 pm

Kolkata: A total of 48.41 per cent of the 1,25,23,702 electorate cast their vote till 1 pm in seven Lok Sabha constituencies of West Bengal that went to polls in the fifth phase on Monday, an Election Commission official said.

The Arambag (SC) parliamentary registered the highest polling at 55.37 per cent followed by Uluberai at 52.79 per cent, Hooghly (50.50 per cent), Sreerampur (47.75 per cent), Howrah (44.71 per cent), Bangaon (SC) (44.15 per cent) and Barrackpore (42.47 per cent), he said.

Polling began at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm.

Till 1.15 pm, the Chief Electoral Office (CEO), West Bengal, received 1,399 poll-related complaints, he added.

The electorate comprising 63,51,320 men, 61,72,034 women and 348 belonging to the third gender, are eligible to exercise their franchise across 13,481 polling stations.

The commission has designated over 57 per cent of the polling stations as sensitive and deployed over 60,000 personnel of central forces, in addition to around 30,000 policemen.

The number of security forces deployed for this phase surpasses any of the earlier four phases in the state.

A total of 88 candidates are in the fray in the fifth phase, with the highest number of 15 nominees in Bongaon, where Union Minister Shantanu Thakur is contesting against TMC's Biswajit Das.