Campaigning ends for sixth phase of LS polls in Bengal

The high-pitched campaigning by different political parties for eight Lok Sabha constituencies going to the polls in the sixth phase on May 12 came to an end Friday evening.

Election in this phase will cover Jangal Mahal - the forested region of Bankura, West Midnapore, Jhargram and Purulia districts which used to be a Maoist hotbed during the erstwhile Left Front regime.

Seats in which elections will be held on Sunday are Tamluk, Kanthi, Ghatal, Jhargram (ST), Medinipur, Purulia, Bankura and Bishnupur (SC), where an electorate of 1,33,69,749 will decide the fate of 83 candidates, the EC said.

The EC will deploy a total 770 companies of central forces, which will cover almost 100 per cent polling booths in the eight constituencies to ensure free and fair polling, officials in the poll panel said.

All the eight seats spread across the four Jangal Mahal districts and East Midnapore, will see mostly a four- cornered contest between Trinamool Congress, BJP, Congress and the Left Front. Only Bankura seat will have a triangular fight, since Congress did not put up any candidate there.

The campaign saw poll meetings by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP president Amit Shah, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congres supremo Mamata Banerjee and her Andhra Pradesh counterpart N Chandrababu Naidu. Banerjee also participated in a number of roadshows.

In Tamluk seat, BJP fielded Siddhartha Shankar Naskar against sitting TMC MP Dibyendu Adhikari. The Left Front constituent CPI(M) has nominated Sk Ibrahim Ali, while the Congress has nominated Lakshman Seth, who was earlier in CPI(M).

In Kanthi, the TMC MP Sisir Adhikari is contesting against BJP's Dr debasis Samanta. The Congress has nominated Deepak Kumar Das and CPI(M) Paritosh Pattanayak.

Ghatal Lok Sabha seat will see TMC's sitting celebrity candidate Deepak Adhikari (Dev) locking horns with BJP's Bharati Ghosh, a former IPS officer. Congress has nominated Khandakar Md Saifullah and the Left Front constituent CPI Tapan Ganguli.

In Jhargram (ST) seat TMC's Birbaha Soren (Tudu) will contest against Kunar Hembram of BJP. The Congress has fielded Jageswar Hembram and CPI(M) Deblina Hembram.

Manas Ranjan Bhunia is the TMC candidate from Medinipur seat against BJP's state president Dilip Ghosh. The Congress has nominated Sambhunath Chattopadhyay and the Left Front constituent CPI has fielded Biplab Bhatta for the seat.

In Purulia, sitting MP Mriganka Mahato of TMC will contest against BJP's Jyotirmoy Singh Mahato. The Left Front constituent All India Forward Bloc has nominated Bir Singh Mahato and the Congress Nepal Mahato for the seat.

In Bankura seat, TMC's Subrata Mukherjee will contest against Dr Subhas Sarkar of BJP. The CPI(M) has fielded Amiya Patra. The seat will have a triangular contest.

Shyamal Santra is the TMC candidate from Bishnupur (SC) seat against BJP's Saumitra Khan. The CPI(M) has nominated Sunil Khan and the Congress has fielded Narayan Chandra Khan.

Braving a record heat and humidity, the polling personnel have left for the 15,428 booths in the eight seats.

Besides general election observers and expenditure observers, the poll panel has for the first time deployed a special police observer and a special observer.

In another first, VVPAT will be used in all the polling booths along with the EVMs, EC sources said.