Counting for West Bengal by-polls begins

KOLKATA: The counting of votes began today for the Chowringhee and Basirhat Dakhin Assembly seats in West Bengal where by-polls were held on September 13, state Chief Electoral Officer Sunil Gupta said.

The fate of a total 14 candidates in the fray would be decided--nine in the prestigious Chowringhee constituency and five in Basirhat Dakshin in North 24-Parganas district which borders Bangladesh.

Chowringhee seat was won by Sikha Mitra of Trinamool Congress in the 2011 Assembly elections. The by-election fell due after the resignation of Mitra from TMC.

Trinamool has fielded Nayana Bandyopadhyay, wife of the leader of the Trinamool Congress Parliamentary Party Sudip Bandyopadhyay, from the Chowringhee Assembly segment.

BJP, which has emerged as a major contender this time, has put up its state secretary and spokesman Ritesh Tiwari from the Chowringhee seat.

Santosh Pathak is the Congress candidate and Faiyaz Ahmed Khan is the CPI(M) nominee from the seat.

Basirhat Dakshin Assembly seat was won by CPI(M)'s Narayan Mukhopadhyay in 2011. The by-election was caused due to his death.

Like Chowringhee, TMC, BJP, Congress and CPI(M) have fielded their candidates in the Basirhat Dakshin seat.

Former Indian soccer captain Dipendu Biswas is the Trinamool candidate while BJP has fielded Samik Bhattacharya, who had contested the last Lok Sabha polls on a BJP ticket from Basirhat LS seat.

Asit Majumder and Mrinal Chakrabarty are contesting from Basirhat Dakshin as Congress and CPI(M) candidates respectively.