West Bengal’s assembly elections ended on Wednesday with its capital recording a turnout of around 88% by 10pm, with no incidents of violence.
Of the 92.43 % turnout in the second and final phase of Bengal election across 142 seats in seven districts, Kolkata South Lok Sabha seat recorded 87.81% turnout, while North Lok Sabha seat recorded 89.34% voter turnout. Each seat has seven constituency.
As of 10pm, the turnout for the 11 seats under the Kolkata Municipal Corporation stands at Chowringhee (86.61%), Entally (92.01%), Beliaghata (90.81%), Jorasanko (86.62%), Shyampukur (88.07%), Manicktala (90.27%), Kashipur-Belgachhia (89.01%), Kolkata Port (89.68%), Bhabanipur ((86.69%), Rashbehari (86.52%), and Ballygunge (88.14%).
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s Bhabanipur seat in south Kolkata, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fielded her former cabinet colleague Suvendu Adhikari, had around 50,000 of its voter deleted during the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise.
In a first since coming to power, Banerjee toured her constituency on Wednesday morning and interacted with voters.
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“I have never seen this sort of election. The BSF’s duty is to secure the borders. But they are capturing booths in the districts…,” she said before casting her vote.
Adhikari interpreted the record turnout as an indicator of his victory. “An 85% turnout means I am winning. If it crosses 90%, my margin will set a record,” he said while touring Bhabanipur.
After a record 92.35% turnout in 152 constituencies in 16 districts in the first phase on April 23, Union home minister Amit Shah claimed that his party would win at least 110 of those seats.
On Wednesday, too, BJP state leaders interpreted the turnout in Kolkata as a fallout of anti-incumbency first witnessed two years ago.
Booth-level analysis of the 2024 Lok Sabha poll results showed that the TMC trailed BJP in 47 of Kolkata’s 144 municipal corporation wards. Four of these wards were in the Bhabanipur assembly seat.
TMC trailed BJP by around 1,600 votes at Shyampukur, represented by industry minister Shashi Panja, a close aide of Banerjee, who has been fielded again. TMC also fell behind by 7,400 votes at the Jorasanko assembly seat that Vivek Gupta won in 2021 by more than 12,000 votes defeating BJP’s Meena Devi Purohit, a veteran councilor at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC). TMC did not field Gupta this year.
On Wednesday, the turnouts at Shyampukur and Jorasanko were 88.07% and 86.62% respectively till 10pm.
In the 2006 assembly polls, when the TMC was BJP’s partner in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the CPI(M)-led Left Front won 176 seats, compared to the then eight-year-old TMC’s 30 seats and the Congress’s 21 seats. TMC contested 257 seats that year and left 29 for BJP, two for Janata Dal (United), and four for a local faction of the Jharkhand Party.
Despite the Left’s overwhelming presence, Banerjee’s candidates captured nine of the 20 Kolkata seats in 2006.
Kolkata had 20 assembly seats until the 2008 delimitation.
In 2011 assembly elections, the TMC won 185 seats and Congress, its electoral ally at that time, secured 42. The Left Front was reduced to 40 seats. All 11 seats in Kolkata were captured by TMC and the trend continued. Voter turnout in those 11 seats in 2011 ranged from 54% to 67%. Only Maniktala recorded a 73% turnout.
www.hindustantimes.com
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