Bengal social welfare minister Biswanath Choudhury casts ballot in Balurght. (Ramen Mondal)

June 29: A high turnout of voters and a single incident of violence marked the polling in five municipalities of north Bengal today.

Over 85 per cent of the 1,19,018 voters, residing in Mekhliganj and Haldibari in Cooch Behar, Alipurduar in Jalpaiguri and Dalkhola and Balurghat in North and South Dinajpur districts exercised their franchise to elect councillors. Two-hundred seventy-three candidates contested for 77 seats in these municipalities.

The Congress candidate for Ward 6 of Alipurduar Municipality, Jitendra Chandra Ghosh, and his son Debraj were severely beaten up, allegedly by RSP supporters, near their home last night.

“The Ghoshes were returning home around 11.30pm when a group of people assaulted them with bamboos,” a police officer said. Hearing the cries, Congress supporters reached the spot and took the injured candidate and his son, a government employee, to the Alipurduar subdivisional hospital.

The candidate was discharged on an “own-risk bond” from the hospital this morning to cast his vote. But his son could not turn up as he was referred to a private nursing home in Cooch Behar for a CT scan, the police said. Ghosh has lodged an FIR with the Alipurduar police station. No one has been arrested yet.

The RSP is facing a tough competition in the 20-ward Alipurduar Municipality, previously held by the Congress.

According to R. Alice Vez, the subdivisional officer, the polling was peaceful with 82 per cent turnout. “Voting was held beyond the scheduled closure of 3pm at three wards, with polling continued till 8pm at two booths in Ward 18.”

The highest turnouts were recorded at Mekhliganj (92.99 per cent in nine wards) and Haldibari (92.56 per cent in 11 wards). “Although there was slight rain, the polling was completed by 3pm,” an official said.

Despite an understanding among the Left allies for the nine Mekhliganj seats (with five contested by Forward Bloc candidates and four by the CPM), Independents backed by the Bloc also fought in four seats.

For the 11 Haldibari seats, it was mainly a straight contest between the Congress and the Left Front.

Polling was peaceful in Balurghat in South Dinajpur, which recorded 84 per cent turnout, said subdivisional officer Krishna Mardi. In North Dinajpur’s Dalkhola, 86 per cent of the electors turned up for casting votes. There was a skirmish at a booth in Ward 7 when the police used canes to disperse a crowd outside the booth in the afternoon.

The Left allies, unlike in the recently concluded panchayat polls, are contesting unitedly for the civic bodies. Parties in the opposition, however, are fighting according to their political stance taken during the panchayat elections. While the Congress is contesting alone and supporting a few Independent candidates, the Trinamul Congress, BJP and the SUCI have fielded candidates according to seat-sharing arrangement.

Currently, the Congress runs the civic board in Alipurduar and Haldibari while the Left Front controls the remaining three. The BJP has only one councillor in Alipurduar, while Trinamul, despite being the largest Opposition party in the Assembly, does not have a single representative in any of the five municipalities.