Nearly 79 per cent poll recorded in Bengal's first phase

The voting was peaceful except for stray incidents while a total of 21 EVMs were replaced after mock poll session, Gupta said.

There was no major incident, while only three preventive arrests were made in Jalpaiguri during polling, the CEO said and ruled out allegations by opposition parties about lack of proper deployment of central forces.  

Arrangements were made for web casting in 110 polling stations and live monitoring in sensitive areas. Five general observers, four expenditure observers, two police observers, one awareness observers, 340 micro-observers were deployed in this phase, the CEO added.

The Special Observer from the ECI for the state Sudhir Kumar Rakesh said, “Everything is OK. I have not received any adverse report from any observer.

Deployment of central forces was appropriate and in consultation with the district administration and the Election Commission.”