High turn-out in Assam, WB; voting 'very peaceful', says EC

West Bengal today reported a 79.51 per cent turnout in part two of the first phase of Assembly elections while Assam saw 82.02 per cent in its second and final phase of the polls which Election Commission said was "very peaceful".
EC said the voting figures are based on text messages sent to Nirvachan Sadan here by poll officials in the two states at 5 PM. The final figures would be higher as people were still waiting in queues to cast votes when the officials sent their texts, it said.
With the final figures still to come in, election officials refused to term the turnout in Assam today a 'historic' or 'record' one.

Deputy Election Commissioner Sandeep Saxena said there was "no violence, injury or death" inside any polling station in the two states.
In West Bengal, there was information of "sporadic" clashes between workers of different political parties. In Jamuria, two sacks containing crude bombs were found 2km away from a
polling station but no untoward incident was reported.

In Raniganj's booth number 50, a candidate and her husband entered a polling station leading to disciplinary action against the presiding officer and FIR against those who violated the rules, he said.
In Assam's Barpeta, there was a clash between CRPF jawans and locals who pelted stones at the former. The CRPF personnel had to resort to a lathi-charge to disperse the crowd.

A 19-year-old boy, Abdul Rashid, died of injuries in the hospital and EC is verifying whether he received injuries during the melee or in the action by security men. A magisterial probe has been ordered by EC into the circumstances leading to the teenager's death.
Saxena said that in the 2011 Assembly polls in Assam, the voter turn-out in the 61 Assembly seats, which went to poll today, was 76.05 per cent while it was 80.21 per cent in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in the same constituencies. The Assam Assembly has a total of 126 seats.
For the 2011 Assembly polls in West Bengal, the turnout in 31 of the 294 seats, which went to elections today, was 83.72 per cent while in the 2014 general elections it was 83.39 per cent.

Responding to posers, Saxena said that "in our assessment, the election today was very peaceful".