West Bengal bypolls: BJP's Dinhata candidate says TMC tried to stop him from voting

Asoke Mandal, the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) candidate from Dinhata Assembly in West Bengal's Cooch Behar district alleged that Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers attempted to stop him when he was on his way to cast his vote at booth number 291 at the Dinhata High School.

Bypolls to four Assembly seats in West Bengal are being held today. The state recorded a voter turnout of 28.38% till 11 am in the four constituencies that include Dinhata in Cooch Behar, Shantipur in Nadia, Khardah in North 24 Parganas and Gosaba in South 24 Parganas districts. As per the Election Commission's data, the Dinhata Assembly seat recorded 28.73% voter turnout and Gosaba recorded 33.87% turnout in the morning. The Khardaha seat had a voter turnout of 23.60% while the Santipur seat reported a 32.31% turnout. Voting began early on Saturday at 7 am and is expected to continue till 6:30 pm.

The Santipur and Dinhata seats were left vacant after the resignations of BJP MPs Jagannath Sarkar and Nishith Pramanik respectively. The elections for the remaining two seats are being held after TMC MLAs Kajal Sinha (Khardah) and Jayanta Naskar (Gosaba) succumbed to the coronavirus. TMC leader Sovandeb Chattopadhyay had resigned from the Bhabanipur constituency in order to facilitate Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's election to the Assembly and is currently fighting the elections from Khardah. Mamata Banerjee’s party won the elections by a landslide earlier this year, with the TMC winning 213 seats in the 294-member West Bengal Assembly. The BJP performed well with 77 seats. 

Big weekend across the country

Apart from West Bengal, bypolls are being conducted for three Parliamentary seats and 26 Assembly constituencies in various states. The results of the elections will be announced on November 2.

“The Commission has reviewed the situations related to the pandemic, flood, festivals, cold conditions in certain regions, feedback from concerned States/UT and taken into consideration all facts and circumstances and it has decided to hold bye-elections to fill vacancies in three Parliamentary Constituencies of UT of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu; Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh and 30 vacancies in Assembly Constituencies of various States,” the Election Commission informed.

(With inputs from ANI)