Voting for the Lok Sabha Election is currently being conducted in three areas of North Bengal – Balurghat, Darjeeling and Raiganj.
During the second phase of voting on Friday, there were some troubling incidents reported by different parties. The All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) claimed that voters at a booth in Balurghat were brutally attacked and they alleged that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were tampered too in Raiganj. On the other hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stated that the voting process was mostly peaceful, with only a few problems like TMC causing disruptions at booths.
The TMC expressed strong concerns about the conduct of the elections by the Election Commission of India. They accused the central forces, deployed to ensure fair elections, of disrupting democracy in Bengal. In Balurghat's Municipality Ward No. 9, voting had to be stopped due to what they described as a brutal assault on their voters by these forces. Additionally, the TMC claimed that despite warnings from their leader Mamata Banerjee about Border Security Force (BSF) personnel intimidating voters in border areas, the Election Commission did not take action. They provided specific evidence of BSF personnel allegedly threatening and harassing voters at booth 202 of Balurghat's Batun GP.
