Bhabanipur bypoll Live Updates: Voting begins at Bhabanipur, 2 other Bengal seats amid tight security, strict Covid measures

Polling began at 7 am on Thursday for the bypolls to the Bhabanipur seat, where West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is contesting, and two other constituencies amid tight security and stringent Covid-19 measures.

To ensure watertight security and peaceful polling in Bhabanipur on Thursday, the Election Commission on Wednesday decided to bring in 20 more companies of Central Armed Police Personnel.

The constituency, which has twice elected Mamata and is considered her home, will pit the Trinamool Congress supremo against two young faces — BJP’s Priyanka Tibrewal and the CPM’s Srijib Biswas. However, the polling, this time, assumes special significance as the CM is fighting to keep her chair, while the BJP is eyeing an encore of Nandigram where the Trinamool chief contested and lost to Suvendu Adhikari in the Assembly polls held earlier this year.

The bypolls are being held in south Kolkata’s Bhabanipur, and Jangipur and Samserganj seats in Murshidabad district. A total 6,97,164 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the three constituencies. Votes will be counted on October 3.

Bhabanipur bypoll: Everything but politics

Sitting on a bench outside Habu Da’s tea stall, opposite the heritage ‘Mitra Institution’ in Bhabanipur, Babla Ghosh, 36, speaks dismissively, “What election? People already know the outcome.”

Bhabanipur — the constituency in south Kolkata thrust into the limelight as the seat from where Mamata Banerjee will seek to enter the Assembly through a by-election on September 30, after her loss from Nandigram in the state elections earlier this year — has had an extended electoral season, and the fatigue is showing. The conversation in the town’s popular addas, from Habu Da’s tea stall to the famous Balwant Singh’s Eating House, mostly focuses on the mundane — price rise, the unusually heavy rainfall this year, and Mamata Banerjee’s intervention to find a sponsor for the East Bengal football club.