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| West Bengal panchayat polls: |
| West Bengal panchayat polls: Voting for first phase begins amid tight security
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| INDIA
, 11-July-2013
3:31:44 AM |
| Eleven persons have been injured in a clash between workers of the Congress and the ruling Trinamool in West Midnapore district in West Bengal as voting for the first of the controversial five-phased panchayat polls in the state got underway today. Senior CPM leader Surya Kanta Mishra was also heckled by Trinamool supporters in the district after he cast this vote this morning.
The elections, which have generated much political heat, are being held after the Supreme Court last week refused to reschedule its dates which the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government said, were clashing with the holy month of Ramzan. The top court had also strongly criticised the state government for dilly-dallying on the issue of holding polls
Nearly 75 lakh voters across three districts will stamp the ballot paper the old-fashioned way to choose representatives to over 10,200 seats. The districts that will witness polling today include West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura, which together comprise Junglemahal, an erstwhile Maoist stronghold. Voting will be done for the three-tier rural bodies - gram panchayat, panchayat samiti and zilla parishad. Security is tight today across the three districts with over 48,000 central and state forces having been deployed to ensure smooth voting in 10,038 polling stations.
The Left had, during the last elections, won majority of the seats from this region. This time, though, Ms Banerjee's Trinamool Congress has already won over 1,600 seats without a contest.
The party has, in all, already grabbed a majority of the 6,274 seats that have been won uncontested from the total 58,865 seats that will witness voting across the five phases on July 11, 15, 19, 22 and 25. A total of 1.7 lakh candidates are in the fray in over 17 districts in these controversial elections.
The elections have been the cause of a bitter legal confrontation between the Bengal government and the State Election Commission,
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