West Bengal bypolls: Counting of votes to begin today

The counting of votes for the West Bengal bypolls will begin in Kolkata at 8 am on Sunday amid heavy security deployment.

The polling was held in Bhabanipur, Jangipur and Samserganj assembly constituencies of the state on September 30.

Twenty four companies of central forces have been deployed at the counting centres, and the entire area will be put under CCTV surveillance. Officials will only be allowed pen and paper and only the returning officer and observer are allowed to use phones, officials informed.

The counting will be held in 21 rounds for the Bhabanipur constituency, 26 rounds for Samserganj and 24 rounds for the Jangipur constituency at the Sakhawat Memorial School of Kolkata.

Bhabanipur assembly seat in West Bengal, from where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is in the fray, recorded a voter turnout of 57.09 per cent during voting on Thursday, according to the state election commission. While Samserganj recorded a voter turnout of 79.92 per cent, Jangipur recorded 77.63 per cent voting.

The bypolls were held for Bhabanipur in South Kolkata and Jangipur and Samserganj seats in the Murshidabad district of the state.

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.

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.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded 41-year-old Priyanka Tibrewal, a lawyer, against the TMC chief. CPI(M) has fielded Srijib Biswas, who is also a lawyer. Congress did not contest the seat.

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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