Repolling began at 7 a.m. at 696 booths across 19 West Bengal districts where voting for panchayat elections was declared illegal due to suspicions of ballot box tampering and rioting that left 15 people dead, officials said. The repolling will take place till 5 p.m. amid strict security, with four central forces personnel and state police positioned in each of the booths, they said.
They noted that among the areas where repolling was taking place, Murshidabad had the most booths (175), followed by Malda with 109. Officials stated that repolling was also taking place in 89 booths in Nadia, followed by Cooch Behar (53), North 24 Parganas (46), Uttar Dinajpur (42), South 24 Parganas (36), Purba Medinipur (31) and Hooghly (29). They stated that no re-elections had been ordered in the districts of Darjeeling, Jhargram, and Kalimpong.
The State Election Commission (SEC) made the decision to re-vote in these 696 booths on Sunday evening after assessing reports of violence and tampering with ballot boxes and ballot papers, they stated. The three-tier panchayat elections were held on Saturday in approximately 61,000 polling stations. Ballot boxes were looted, burned on fire, and thrown into ponds in various locations, sparking rioting. A total of 5.67 crore individuals living in the state’s rural districts were eligible to vote on the fate of 2.06 lakh candidates in the panchayat system’s 73,887 seats.
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