A woman who came to a polling booth in Howrah without a voter identity card gets her picture clicked by an election official. People without photo-identity cards but carrying any of the 20-odd prescribed identity documents, such as passport, can get their pictures taken at some of the polling stations and cast their vote. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

Calcutta, April 22: An exit poll today predicted a repeat of the Left Front’s Lok Sabha election success story as Bengal turned up in strength again to pick its leaders in the Assembly.

Midnapore East, Howrah, Hooghly and Nadia were the four districts that went to polls today.

In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, the CPM had led comfortably in 50 Assembly segments in the four districts.

Today’s exit poll ? conducted by STAR Ananda ? said the same number of seats would land in the Left’s kitty this time, which means an increase of seven seats.

In the first phase ? Bankura, Purulia and West Midnapore voted last Monday ? the exit poll had predicted that the Left Front would win 39 seats, one more than what it had bagged in 2001.

Left Front chairman and CPM state secretary Biman Bose said the front’s tally would “remarkably” exceed the 2001 figure in the four districts. “This is because of our intense campaign in the districts, which was enough to convince voters to come out in bigger numbers and cast their votes in favour of the Left Front.”

The 74 per cent voter turnout for the 66 seats that went to polls today was almost a repeat of last Monday, and the districts aren’t done yet. The figure is certain to go up as there were long queues of voters in front of many polling booths till late at night.

The Election Commission said the high count was because of the “free and peaceful” manner in which voting was conducted.

However, local CPM leaders claimed that the party’s largescale mobilisation of voters was responsible for drawing people to polling booths.

“Our workers took it as a challenge to see to it that as many voters as possible turned up to cast their votes freely,” said Lakshman Seth, the CPM MP from Haldia. “We have succeeded as the turnout has been very impressive.”

Nikhil Samanta, a local committee member from Nadia, echoed him. “We went from house to house and exhorted the people to come out and vote,” he said. “The Election Commission has imposed so many restrictions that it became difficult to campaign the way we used to and we had to individually approach the voters. This was the mobilisation strategy that had been decided on.”

The Election Commission’s “peaceful” verdict notwithstanding, the Trinamul Congress alleged “booth jamming” at several places. Election officials said there were delays in several booths because nearly 100 electronic voting machines (EVM) had malfunctioned.

Chief electoral officer Debashis Sen said his department would probe the lapse. “We’re consulting the Electronic Corporation of India on this. Also, we need to have more mock polls to check EVMs.”

However, the Trinamul stuck to its stand. Party MP and general secretary Mukul Roy demanded repolling in 55 booths in Hooghly, Nadia and East Midnapore.

Sen said the demand would be looked into, but a repoll would take place only if the poll process had been “actually vitiated”.

The commission had deployed a large number of additional observers in Arambagh subdivision today following complaints against the CPM’s intimidation.

A stray report of violence came from Brindaban Primary School in Arambagh, about 110 km from Calcutta.

Police wielded the baton when a group of people who did not have voter identity cards tried to barge into the polling booth around 6.30 in the evening.

Block development officer Purnendu Majhi rushed to the spot and asked police to disperse the mob.

At the end of the day, the poll panel said it was satisfied.

“I am happy with the conduct of the polls and the peaceful manner in which it took place,” said deputy election commissioner Anand Kumar, who visited some of the booths and interacted with voters.