Calcutta, April 25: Reports of booth capturing, bomb blasts and assaults on polling staff came in from across West Bengal as people voted on Saturday for new councilors in 91 municipalities across 18 districts.

Television channels beamed clips of criminals armed with muskets running riot in Katwa in Burdwan district after a Trinamul Congress worker was reported to have been killed.  The police did not act. Although the Union government had sent a few companies of paramilitary forces, they landed a day before the elections, and were not deployed at probable hotspots.

ABP Ananda reported that at many places, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its arch foe, the Bharatiya Janata Party, found themselves at the receiving end of assaults by criminals allegedly backed by the TMC. But the TMC denied its involvement in the attacks.

Polling began at 7am at 8756 booths in 1946 wards, and is scheduled to end at 3pm.

Within the first three hours, the television channel ABP Ananda was running clips of violence from Siliguri in the north to Kandi and Katwa in the south, and areas around Calcutta such as Birati, New Barrackpore, North Dum Dum, Kamarhati, Basirhat and Titagarh.

In Basirhat, residents were reported to have repulsed attempts by criminals to capture booths.

The ruling Trinamul Congress has already won uncontested in Gayeshpur in Nadia district and Arambagh and Tarakeswar in Hooghly district. The results for Saturday's elections, as also the election to the Calcutta civic body, which was held on April 18, are to be announced on April 28.