West Bengal Election 2021 Voting: BJP, TMC fight for 34 seats in Phase 7 today; date, time of polling

West Bengal has entered its last leg of the election, with polling over for 222 seats in six phases done. Over 86 lakh voters will decide the political fate of 284 candidates today (Monday, 26 April). The seventh and second-last phase of the election will see 34 Assembly constituencies including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s home turf Bhabanipur, go to polls amid a raging second wave of COVID-19. Voting will be held between 7 am and 6 pm on Monday. Security measures have been heightened in view of the violence in the previous phases, particularly the death of five people in Cooch Behar in the fourth round of polling on 10 April, an Election Commission official said. The poll panel has decided to deploy at least 796 companies of central forces in the seventh phase to ensure free and fair voting, he said. It will also put in place measures to ensure strict adherence to COVID-19 protocols during the voting process, the official said. West Bengal registered its highest-single- day spike of 14,281 coronavirus cases on Saturday, which took the tally to 7,28,061, and at least 59 more people succumbed to the infection, pushing the toll to 10,884. Key seats and candidates Voting will be held at 12,068 polling stations spread over nine Assembly constituencies each in Murshidabad and Paschim Bardhaman districts, six each in Dakshin Dinajpur and Malda, and four in Kolkata, the official said. All eyes will be on the Bhabanipur constituency, of which the TMC supremo is the sitting MLA and a resident. Banerjee, however, has opted for Nandigram to contest the elections this time and reposed faith in the veteran politician and state power minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay to make a hat-trick of wins for the party from Bhabanipur. Chattopadhyay is pitted against a seasoned actor but a greenhorn in electoral politics, Rudranil Ghosh, who left the ruling party a few months ago to join the BJP. State minister Firhad Hakim is also seeking re-election for a third consecutive term from the Kolkata Port constituency, while the BJP fielded Lt General (Retired) Subrata Saha from the Rashbehari seat in the metropolis. Campaigning for the seventh phase has been a low-key affair, following curbs imposed by the EC in the wake of the second wave of COVID-19 cases in the state. Following the surge in coronavirus cases across the country, the EC has banned roadshows and vehicle rallies in the state and noted that the COVID safety norms were being flouted in West Bengal during campaigning. It also disallowed any public meeting with more than 500 people. The Election Commission has curtailed daily campaign hours and extended the “silence period” from 48 hours to 72 in each of the remaining three phases of the Assembly polls in view of the Cooch Behar violence and the rising COVID-19 cases. The TMC chief and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, who is the party MP, cancelled all their scheduled rallies and held them on the virtual platform as did Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 23 April. Polling for two Assembly seats in Samserganj and Jangipur in Murshidabad district has been declared void following the deaths of two candidates there. The Election Commission has fixed 16 May for the polling in these two seats. With inputs from PTI