Thirty-four per cent of the electorate today cast their votes till 11 a.m. in 75 seats in the metropolis and adjoining North and South 24 Parganas districts which went to polls in the crucial third phase of West Bengal Assembly elections.

“An average 34 per cent polling was recorded till 11:00 am,” Additional CEO, Mr N.K. Sahana said.

So far no untoward incident has been reported from anywhere. Thirty-five per cent polling was recorded in North 24 Parganas, 36 per cent in South 24 Parganas and 31 per cent in Kolkata.

The total electorate of the 75 seats is 1.44 crore. Enthusiasm among the voters, mainly new voters, was evident at many booths. Serpentine queues could be seen before many polling booths where people stood in line to cast their voters even before the polling began.

Tight security arrangements have been made in polling booths with deployment of central forces.

Malfunctioning of EVMs were reported from a few places which were promptly replaced, Election Commission sources here said.

An electorate of 1.44 crore would decide the fate of 479 candidates including the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, and 11 ministers in this phase.

Over 6,000 central para-military personnel have been deployed for polling in 11 seats in Kolkata, 33 in neighbouring North 24-Parganas and 31 in South 24-Parganas districts, which have 17,792 polling booths.

Besides Mr Bhattacharjee, other prominent candidates are the Finance Minister, Mr Asim Dasgupta, the Housing Minister, Mr Goutam Deb, the Transport Minister, Mr Ranjit Kundu, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Partha Chatterjee, the Kolkata Mayor, Mr Sovan Chatterjee, former FICCI Secretary General, Mr Amit Mitra and actor Debashree Roy.

The six-phase election will end on May 10.

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