Bengal turnout outpaces 2024 Lok Sabha pace in first six hours

Kolkata: Voter turnout in West Bengal’s ongoing Assembly polls has outpaced the pace seen in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, with participation in the first six hours already running significantly higher than last year’s average.

Election Commission data shows that polling till 1 pm across all seven phases of the 2024 general elections averaged just 49.6%, with each phase recording turnout in the range of 45–55% during the same time window—well below the levels being witnessed in the current state polls.

In Murshidabad’s Domkal, the ECI has sought an Action Taken Report on an incident of violence after several persons were injured last night in clashes between Trinamool Congress and CPI(M) workers, including one person who was seriously injured and hospitalised.


At around 10:30 AM, in Murshidabad’s Nawda, a scuffle broke out between workers of Humayun Kabir’s Aam Aadmi Unnayan Party and the Trinamool Congress in Kabir’s presence. CAPF and police immediately intervened.
Voters in Domkal’s Raipur, who claimed they were unable to go out to vote, were escorted by CAPF and a heavy police force to polling booths.

In Malda’s Mothabari, during the initial hours of polling, people expressed anger as the sector officer’s mobile phone was switched off and voting was delayed by more than an hour due to EVM snags.

The first phase of the two-phase election covers 152 of the state’s 294 seats, including those in north Bengal — Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Alipurduar, Cooch Behar, North and South Dinajpur — as well as Malda, Murshidabad, Birbhum, Purba and Paschim Medinipur, Purulia, Bankura and the Jhargram-Junglemahal belt.

More than 3.60 crore voters, including nearly 1.75 crore women, are eligible to exercise their franchise on Thursday. The Election Commission has deployed a record 2,450 companies of central forces, with more than 8,000 polling stations identified as highly sensitive.

A high-voltage battle is being fought in several seats across the state, including Nandigram, where Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari is seeking a second term after defeating Mamata Banerjee in 2021. Adhikari is contesting against Pabitra Kar, once his close aide and a former BJP leader who defected to the Trinamool Congress.

In the Baharampur seat, Congress veteran Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is returning to Assembly politics after more than three decades in a contest against BJP MLA Subrata Maitra and Trinamool’s Narugopal Mukherjee, who was mentored into politics by Adhir himself.

Another heavyweight candidate is BJP’s Dilip Ghosh, contesting from Kharagpur (Sadar) for the second time.
One of the most talked-about candidates this year is Aam Aadmi Unnayan Party’s Humayun Kabir, who is contesting from Murshidabad’s Rezinagar.

North Bengal will be closely watched, with the Mathabhanga seat being contested by former Union minister Nisith Pramanik, who is seeking to retain the BJP’s hold over the Rajbanshi belt after shifting from Dinhata. In neighbouring Dinhata, state minister Udayan Guha is contesting for the Trinamool Congress.

In 2021, the BJP had won 59 of these 152 seats, compared with the Trinamool Congress’s tally of 93. The BJP had won 35 seats in the North Bengal region, which remains its stronghold.

The phase is being contested across sharply different landscapes, from the hills of Darjeeling and Kalimpong to the tea gardens of Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar, the Rajbanshi belt of Cooch Behar, the border districts of Malda and Uttar Dinajpur, and minority-dominated pockets of the state. Polling is also underway in the Junglemahal belt of Purulia, Bankura and Jhargram, as well as the closely watched South Bengal districts of Purba Medinipur and Paschim Medinipur.

In Malda and Murshidabad, the issue of deleted names has been particularly prominent. In Malda’s Mothabari, protests erupted after names were allegedly struck off the rolls, making it one of the most politically charged pockets in this phase.

One issue has cast a shadow across almost every district — the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
The election discourse has centred around SIR, alongside issues such as alleged corruption in school jobs, unemployment and welfare schemes. The most politically charged terms have been “citizenship”, “infiltrator”, “bogus voter”, “deleted name” and “foreigner”.