The seat went to the bypoll due to the sudden demise of Trinamul Congress MLA Nasiruddin Ahamed in February.
Kolkata: The Assembly bypoll at Kaliganj seat in Nadia of West Bengal on Thursday witnessed nearly 70% voter's turnout without any major incident of disruption. According to the Election Commission, till 5 pm the polling was recorded at 69.85% which is expected to increase.
The seat went to the bypoll due to the sudden demise of Trinamul Congress MLA Nasiruddin Ahamed in February. While the ruling party fielded his daughter, Alifa Ahamed, a 38-year-old BTech graduate and corporate professional, to retain the seat, BJP gave the ticket to Ashis Ghosh.
On the other hand, Congress candidate Kabil Uddin Shaikh contested with the support of CPI(M). 14 companies of central forces were deployed across the constituency to ensure free and fair polling which was evident by and large throughout the day.
A few exceptions were some booths including to the one at Chandghar Adarsha Vidyapith where the Congress candidate alleged that its polling agent was forcibly removed by TMC workers.
In another incident, the BJP candidate accused the polling officials of deliberately marking his middle finger with the indelible ink instead of the index finger under the pressure of TMC agent. Mr Ghosh claimed, "They missed to mark my finger with the ink when I went to cast my vote. Later when I found it and went back to the booth, they marked my middle finger with the ink. This is a pre-planned political conspiracy by the TMC.”
He also showed his ink-marked middle finger to the media. Poll officials however confirmed that no rules were violated but have sought a report from the district magistrate on the incident.
