Elections in the fifth and last phase of the Assembly elections will be held in six northern Bengal districts for 49 seats on Monday to determine the fate of 306 candidates, including seven ministers of the Left Front government.
The six districts -- Coochbehar (9 seats), Jalpaiguri (12 seats), Uttar Dinajpur (seven seats), Dakshin Dinajpur (five seats), Malda (eleven seats) and Darjeeling (five seats) -- have a total electorate of 81.76 lakh.
Ministers in the fray are Asoke Bhattacharjee, Jogesh Barman, Biswanath Choudhury, Sailen Sarkar, Hafiz Alam Sairani, Srikumar Mukherjee and Dasharath Tirkey.
Information and Broadcasting minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi's wife Deepa is also in the fray from Goalpokhar.
The Minister for Agriculture, Kamal Guha and Minister for Tourism Dinesh Dakua are not contesting the polls.
Guha, who has said he would stay away from active politics and concentrate on social work, has fielded his son Udyan, who is the All India Forward Block candidate from Dinhata constituency in Coochbehar district.
With the special drive of the Election Commission to make the electoral roll as clean as possible, 1.35 lakh names were deleted from the electoral rolls and 85,184 new voters included.
A total of 477 companies have been deployed in the six districts, with strict vigil being kept on the Indo-Bangla border and the interstate border with Assam.
According to Inspector-General of Police (North Bengal) K C Meena sufficient arrangements have been made to conduct the polls peacefully.
Three paramilitary personnel would be deployed in each booth and would also guard the strong rooms where EVMs would be kept after polling, he said.
There has been no incident or threat by any militant outfit with the KLO reduced in strength and Maoists having no strong base in the region, Meena said.
District Magistrate of Darjeeling, Dr Arif Aftab told PTI that police and security forces were keeping extra vigil along the Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Bihar, Sikkim and Assam borders.
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The Raiganj constituency in Uttar Dianjpur has the highest number of 11 candidates, while Kumargram (Jalpaiguri district), Chopra and Islampur (both Uttar Dinajpur) each have only three contestants.
In terms of the electorate, Siliguri in Darjeeling district is the largest constituency with 2,70,339 voters, while Manikchak in Malda district is the smallest with a voting population of 1,35,573.
Deputy Election Commissioner R Balakrishnan and state Chief Electoral Officer Debashish Sen have toured the districts to supervise security arrangements.
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