82 per cent polling recorded in West Bengal

Gupta said voting remained peaceful except for some stray incidents in which three persons were arrested, a couple of polling agents were removed, departmental proceedings initiated against an assistant sub-inspector and a voter was injured in an attack.

“We have not yet received report of any major incident regarding disruption of law and order or complaint of booth jamming or violation of the model code of conduct,” he said.  There was no incident of any poll boycott during this phase, he said adding altogether 28 EVMs had to be replaced as they did not work properly.

Arrangements were there for webcasting and live monitoring of sensitive areas where tight security was provided by central forces.

There were some encouraging scenes during the day.  Tanmay Chakraborty, District Magistrate of Purulia said 50 voters of Notundih village under Raghunathpur Block-II of the district, cast their votes for the first time.  “There are 500 voters in the village, but due to some prejudice they never came out to cast their votes.

After extensive awareness campaign, for the first time 50 voters came to the booth and cast their votes today. Out of them, there were 45 female voters,” said Chakraborty.