West Bengal Election: As many as 152 constituencies in the first phase of the high-stakes West Bengal elections are voting today, 23 April, after a high-octane campaign by all political parties.
The 152 seats voting today are spread across 16 districts in north Bengal and parts of south Bengal, most of them away from the state capital, Kolkata.
The election in West Bengal is largely considered a bipolar fight between the incumbent Trinamool Congress(TMC) led by Mamata Banerjee, and a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). About 3.22 crore voters are eligible to cast their ballots in the first phase,
The polling is being held amid tight security today. Over 2,000 companies of paramilitary forces have been deployed across Bengal in an unprecedented security arrangement, mostly across the Murshidabad and Cooch Behar districts of north Bengal.
Over 5,011 Flying Squad Teams and 5,363 Static Surveillance Teams have been deployed, conducting surprise checks and responding to complaints within 100 minutes.
The rest of the regions in politically crucial West Bengal will vote on 29 April. The results will be declared on 4 May.
What happened in the 2021 assembly elections?
The 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly elections were held in eight phases between 27 March and 29 April to elect all 294 members of the Legislative Assembly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The incumbent Trinamool Congress, led by Mamata Banerjee, won the election by a landslide, bagging 215 seats, despite opinion polls generally predicting a close race against the BJP, which became the official opposition with 77 seats.
For the first time in the history of Bengal, no members from the Congress and the Communist Party were elected.
TMC won 92 of 152 seats in 2021
Of the 152 seats voting in phase 1 today, the TMC had won 92 seats in the 2021 polls, while the BJP had won 59 seats.
In 2021, Nawsad Siddique of the Indian Secular Front (ISF) defeated his nearest rival, Rezaul Karim of the TMC, by about 27000 votes in Bhangar assembly constituency in Bengal's South 24 Parganas district. Siddique was the lone non-BJP, non-TMC candidate to win the 2021 assembly election.
The ISF contested the 2021 polls in alliance with the Congress and the Left. This time, the ISF and Left are in alliance. The Congress is contesting separately. This year, Bhangar is voting in the second phase on 29 April.
One of the key seats that the BJP won in 2021, despite losing assembly elections, was Nandigram. Suvendu Adhikari defeated Mamata Banerjee from this seat. Adikari is contesting from Nandigram again this time. He is also contesting from Bhabanipur, where Mamata Banerjee is the TMC's candidate.
