West Bengal bypolls: Counting of votes underway

The counting of votes for by-elections in Bhabanipur, Jangipur, and Samserganj Assembly constituencies in West Bengal began from 8 am on Sunday amid tight security.

The counting will be held in 21 rounds for the Bhabanipur constituency, 26 rounds for Samserganj and 24 rounds for the Jangipur constituency.

A three-tier security has been set up at the Sakhawat Memorial Girls High School in Bhabanipur in south Kolkata. Twenty four companies of central forces have been deployed at the counting centres, and the entire area has been put under CCTV surveillance.

Prohibitory orders under Section 144 CrPC have been imposed within 200 metre radius of the counting centres at all three constituencies that went to the polls on September 30.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who had lost the assembly elections from Nandigram earlier this year, BJP's Priyanka Tibrewal and CPI(M)'s Srijib Biswas are in the fray from Bhabanipur in south Kolkata.

Banerjee must win the polls and get elected to the assembly to retain the chief minister's chair.

Mamata Banerjee had lost to BJP's Suvendu Adhikari in the Nandigram constituency in the assembly elections held earlier this year. The Bhabanipur assembly seat was vacated by the West Bengal Agriculture Minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay in May, paving the way for Mamata Banerjee to contest the bypoll.

As per the election commission, three constituencies have a total electorate of 6,97,164. The total number of voters in Bhabanipur is 20,64,56; of which 1,11,243 are male and 95, 209 are women. There were 287 booths in Bhabanipur, of which the number of main booths were be 269.

Trinamool Congress had registered a landslide victory in assembly polls winning 213 of 294 seats in the West Bengal assembly. The BJP won 77 seats.

( With inputs from ANI )

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