Assembly polls: Notification for 1st phase Assam, WB today

The Election Commission on Friday will issue notification for the first phase of Assembly elections in Assam and West Bengal.

In Assam, polling for the first phase of polls will be held on 4th of April in 65 seats.

Scrutiny of nomination papers will be held on 19th of this month while 21st March is the last date of withdrawal of nominations.

There would be over 12 thousands polling booths in this phase. Except Congress and AIUDF, most of the major parties have announced their candidates.

Assam has a total of 1 crore 98 lakh voters. Boats, buses, elephants and helicopters will be pressed into service to ferry men and materials during polls.

In West Bengal, the notification for the Assembly elections to 18 constituencies will be issued today. All the 18 constituencies are located in West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia districts will go for polls on 4th April.

Filing of nomination for all these seats, opening today will continue till 18th March, the scrutiny will be done on 19th, the next day.

The candidates will be allowed to withdraw the nominations for these 18 seats till 21st March. The elections to the West Bengal Assembly will be conducted in six voting phases till May 5th and counting of all the 294 constituencies will be done on 19th May.

Only the ruling Trinamul Congress (TMC) has announced its contestants for all the 294 seats. The CPI-M led Left Front has declared a total of 200 names of in two separate list till last evening.

Congress has so far released a partial list of 75 constituencies from which the party will field its candidates. Names of the contestants for these and other seats will be finalized in a party meeting today in Kolkata where central leaders are scheduled to be present.

The BJP has declared candidates for 52 seats in Bengal and process is on to finalise names of party candidates for other seats.