The fourth phase of India’s 18th parliamentary elections also ended peacefully. Monday’s polling in 96 constituencies saw no major violence except for scattered disturbances.
As in the previous three phases, the voting rate in India’s 9 states and 1 union territory was 62.30 percent on average till the afternoon. It has increased to 66 percent at 6 p.m., the Election Commission said. However, the voter turnout in the eight Lok Sabha constituencies of West Bengal touched almost 80 percent.
The National Election Commission said the polling rate in eight centers of West Bengal was 75.66 percent till 5 pm. After another hour of polling, there were long queues of voters till night in many booths in Burdwan and Birbhum.
However, the Election Commission said that despite sporadic clashes between the ruling and opposition parties in various states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Telangana and West Bengal on Monday afternoon, it did not turn into any major violence.
The fourth phase of voting virtually decided the future of Indian voting. On the day before the fourth phase of polling, Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to West Bengal on an election tour and claimed, “BJP will do such good results in the elections that even the pundits will be surprised.” On the other hand, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the same day claimed, “BJP will not cross 200 seats.” Opposition India alliance will get 315 seats and BJP will get 195 seats.
The fate of 1,717 candidates from 10 Indian states and one union territory was decided through this fourth round of voting. Among the heavyweight and star candidates whose fate has been decided in this episode are former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, Asaduddin Weisi, Union Minister Giriraj Singh, Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Chowdhury, YS Sharmila and three heavyweight star candidates from West Bengal. These star candidates are Shatabdi Roy, a three-time Member of Parliament from Birbhum constituency and a popular actress from two Bengals, Bollywood actor Shatrughan Sinha, who is running for the second time as a Member of Parliament from Asansol constituency, Trinamool candidate for Burdwan-Durgapur constituency, former cricketer Kirti Azad, a member of the World Cup winning cricket team in 1983.
In the fourth phase, apart from these eight constituencies of West Bengal, polling was conducted smoothly and peacefully in 25 constituencies of Andhra Pradesh, 5 of Bihar, 4 of Jharkhand, 8 of Madhya Pradesh, 11 of Maharashtra, 4 of Odisha, 17 of Telangana, 13 of Uttar Pradesh and 1 of Jammu and Kashmir.
The eight constituencies that went to polls in West Bengal in the fourth phase are Baharampur, Krishnanagar, Ranaghat, Burdwan East, Burdwan-Durgapur, Asansol, Birbhum and Bolpur. Among the star candidates whose fate has been decided in these eight seats are former cricketer Yusuf Pathan, Keerti Azad, Shatrughan Sinha, Lok Sabha Congress leader Adhir Chowdhury, controversial Trinamool MP Mahua Maitra, Krishnanagar Rajmata Amrita Roy, actress Shatabdi Roy and Bengal-BJP Former President Dilip Ghosh. India’s seven-phase polling ends on June 1; But counting will be from June 4 morning.
