At Kaliganj in West Bengal’s Nadia district, a voter turnout of 69.85 per cent was recorded till 5 pm.”Polling has been peaceful. There was no report of any incident from anywhere in and around the constituency. Till 5 pm, the polling was 69.85 per cent,” an election official told PTI.Sources said the polling percentage may go up as there were queues outside the polling booths.The bypoll was necessitated by the death of Trinamool Congress MLA Nasiruddin Ahamed in February. The ruling party has fielded his daughter, Alifa Ahamed, for the bypoll.The BJP has nominated Ashis Ghosh for the contest, while Congress candidate Kabil Uddin Shaikh is in the fray with the support of the CPI(M).Fourteen companies of central forces were deployed across the constituency to ensure free-and-fair polling.Minor tension was reported from a few booths.At Chandghar Adarsha Vidyapith’s booth No. 56, the Congress alleged that its polling agent was forcibly removed by Trinamool workers, an allegation denied by the ruling party.BJP nominee Ghosh alleged that officials deliberately applied indelible ink on his middle finger instead of the index finger under the “insistence” of Trinamool agents.”First, they missed putting the ink on my finger when I went to vote. Then, after I noticed it and returned, they deliberately marked my middle finger. This is a pre-planned political conspiracy by the TMC,” Ghosh alleged.Poll officials confirmed that no rules were violated but said they have sought a report from the district magistrate regarding the incident.The Election Commission said webcasting was done at all but one polling station of the five seats.A total of 1,354 polling stations were set up for the bypolls and webcasting was held at 1,353 of them, the poll authority said.This was also the first time that the EC provided a mobile-phone deposit facility to the voters.The deposit centres were set up outside the polling stations. So far, no such facility was available and some voters hid phones in their clothes and carried those inside the polling stations, which is against rules.
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