All preparations have been completed for the final phase of West Bengal Assembly elections. Voting will be held on 29 April for 142 assembly seats in six districts including the capital Kolkata. In this phase, more than 3.21 crore voters will decide the fate of 1,448 candidates. According to the Election Commission, there are a total of 3,21,73,837 registered voters on these 142 seats. These include 1,64,35,627 male, 1,57,37,418 female and 792 third gender voters.

Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) have been made available to all voters. Among the voters, there are 3,243 voters aged 100 years and above, while the number of voters above 85 years of age is 1,96,801. Apart from this, 146 NRI voters and 39,961 service voters will also vote in this phase. A total of 1,448 candidates are in the fray in this phase, which includes 1,228 male and 220 female candidates. There is no third gender candidate on any seat.

Of the 142 seats, 107 are reserved for general category, while 34 seats are reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) and one seat for Scheduled Tribe (ST). Maximum 15 candidates are in the fray for Bhangar seat in South 24 Parganas district, while there are minimum five candidates for one seat in Hooghly district. Apart from Kolkata, the districts where voting will take place include Nadia, East Bardhaman, Hooghly, South 24 Parganas, North 24 Parganas and Howrah. A total of 41,001 polling stations have been created, of which 39,301 are main and 1,700 are auxiliary polling stations. Webcasting arrangements have been made at all polling stations.

In the second phase, the contests in Trinamool Congress strongholds Kolkata, Howrah, North and South 24 Parganas, Nadia, Hooghly and East Bardhaman will be monitored. The results of these areas can play an important role in deciding the direction of the elections. Of the 142 seats to be voted in the second phase, Trinamool Congress had won 123 seats in 2021, BJP had won only 18 and ‘Indian Secular Front’ (ISF) had won one seat.

Despite all the efforts of BJP, five years ago Mamata Banerjee’s party won a landslide victory in South Bengal and easily captured power. Voting is also to be held in the same phase on Bhawanipur Assembly seat, which is the political stronghold of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and BJP has fielded Leader of Opposition Subhendu Adhikari here.