West Bengal polls: Rajnath Singh to address three rallies today

Elections will be conducted in six phases, spread across seven polling days from April 4 to May 5

Ahead of the West Bengal assembly polls, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will address three election rallies on Thursday in Bandwan, Purulia and Para districts.

As many as 404 nominations have been found valid after the scrutiny of papers for the second phase of assembly elections.

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56 constituencies spread over Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling, North and South Dinajpur, Malda and Birbhum districts will go to polls in this phase on April 17. Candidates can withdraw their nominations till tomorrow.

The elections to the 294 seat West Bengal Assembly will be conducted in six phases, spread across seven polling days from April 4 to May 5.

Candidates contesting in the third phase can submit their nomination papers till April 4, after which scrutiny would be done. The withdrawal of candidature will be allowed till April 7.

Other than North Kolkata, all the third phase constituencies are part of Murshidabad, Nadia and Burdwan districts of West Bengal.

The polling for the first phase will take place on April 4 and 11. Polling for the second phase will be held on April 17, the third phase on April 21, fourth on April 25 and the fifth and six phases on April 30 and May 5 respectively.

The counting of votes will take place on May 19.