Over 83% polling in Bengal’s two seats in 1st phase

Kolkata, April 12 (IANS) The Election Commission (EC) on Friday said an average of 83.79 per cent voters, of the over 34 lakh electorate in Cooch Behar and Alipurduar constituencies in West Bengal, had cast their votes in the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls held on Thursday.

Of the over 18 lakh electorate in Cooch Behar, 7.77 lakh male and 7.40 lakh female voters had exercised their franchise in the polls, registering 83.88 per cent polling, Additional Chief Electoral Officer Sanjoy Basu told reporters.

In Alipurduar, voter turnout clocked 83.70 per cent as 6.89 lakh male and 6.86 lakh female voters had cast their votes, of the more than 16 lakh voters in the constituency, he said.

Two third gender voters, one each from the two north Bengal constituencies also cast their votes.

"The Commission received about 4,822 complaints in our portals till Friday from these constituencies, besides 4,849 grievances were registered on its cVIGIL app and poll panel had addressed most of the complaints but around 118 of them are yet to be disposed off," he said.

The endangered Toto tribals, tea garden workers and erstwhile enclave dwellers on Thursday had taken part in the world's biggest festival of democracy, amid reports of sporadic violence, EVM glitches and allegations of electoral malpractices.

Polling continued till late night in some of the booths in these two Lok Sabha seats.

While Cooch Behar is a Scheduled Caste (SC) reserved seat, Alipurduar is a Scheduled Tribe (ST) reserved constituency. Both seats were won by the Trinamool Congress in 2014.