Kolkata, Apr 20 (UNI) West Bengal recorded 81.91 percent turnout among the 5.6 million electorates in Friday's first phase election to three Lok Sabha seats of Cooch Behar, Alipurduar (ST), and Jalpaiguri, the state election officials said in a statement on Saturday.
Despite near heat wave conditions and scorching sun, Jalpaiguri, where the polling was almost incident-free, marked the highest 83.66 percent polling followed by Cooch Behar, where stray incidents took place, with 82.17 percent, and tribal-dominated Alipurduar with the lowest 79.76 percent, said the Chief electoral office in the state.
The state has altogether seven-phase polling with the second phase on April 26 for Darjeeling, Balurghat, and Raiganj, also in North Bengal.
The last and the seventh phase of polling is on June 1, 2024. Though the contest is said to be multi-cornered, the real fight is restricted between state ruling Trinamool Congress and the main opposition - the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The latter won all three seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll.
The Left Front and Congress are among other political parties in the run-up.
The majority of the candidates are Independents.
The contest is expected to be between Union Minister Nishith Pramanik and TMC's Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia in the Cooch Behar seat, in Alipurduar between Monoj Tigga (BJP) and TMC's Prakash Chik Baraik, and in Jalpaiguri between Jayanta Kumar Roy of BJP and Nirmal Chandra Roy from the ruling party.
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