Voters queue up as they wait to cast their votes during the second phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections 2026, on Wednesday. (@ECISVEEP X/ANI Photo) Kolkata: Voter turnout in 142 constituencies that went to polls in the second phase of the assembly election on Wednesday was 92.6% till 11pm, taking the overall turnout across all 294 seats and two phases of polling to a whopping 92.9%. The figure easily beat the 2021 turnout — a decent 81.5% — and was one of the highest turnouts for an assembly poll anywhere in India till date, EC officials said. Bengal’s best turnout before this election came in 2011, when 84.3% of voters went to the booths to get the 34-year-old Left Front govt out of office.
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The overall turnout for Bengal comes tantalisingly close to the nationwide record of 93.6% in Tripura’s 2013 poll. However, the Tripura turnout was based on an aggregate of EVM votes and postal ballots, while the Bengal percentage is calculated only on EVM votes. “Highest ever percentage of polling in West Bengal since Independence. Chunav ka parv, Paschim Bengal ka garv,” CEC Gyanesh Kumar said. The overall women’s turnout was 93.2%, men’s 91.7%, EC said. The turnout ensured that more votes were cast this time (6.3 crore) than in 2021 (5.9 crore) despite SIR reducing the size of the electorate from 7.3 crore in 2021 to 6.8 crore.Conventional logic says a higher turnout often reflects an anti-incumbency sentiment.This time, however, the very visible public ire at 27 lakh existing voters being deleted from the electoral roll, and the way in which the stands for Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process was conducted, has muddled things, making straightforward assumptions and interpretations of the vote bump risky.Kolkata, known to be more vote-averse than the rest of Bengal, joined 22 other districts in raising the vote percentage. As many as 88.4% of the city’s electorate voted on Wednesday, EC estimates at 8pm said.That meant a record jump of over 28% over its 2021 performance of a little more than 60%. Kolkata (North) recorded 89.3% polling till 8pm, and was slightly better than Kolkata (South), where it was 87.7%.East Burdwan leads turnout chart with over 93% pollingEast Burdwan led the rush at the polling booth on Wednesday with a 93.6% turnout and was followed by South 24 Parganas (92.6%) and North 24 Parganas (92.4%). Hooghly, Nadia and Howrah recorded voter turnouts of 91.8%, 91.9% and 91.7%, respectively.Election Commission of India officials attributed the unprecedented voter turnout percentage to the weeding of “non-existent voters” (which reduced the overall electorate size), “enhanced measures” that gave voters “a greater sense of security”, and a large number of high-rises getting polling booths inside the complexes.Only one death was attributed to political clashes this election season (in Asansol, where a Congress worker was killed after the first phase of polling).The number in 2021 was 24 (till the counting of votes) and seven in 2016.Around 700 companies of CAPF will remain stationed in Bengal till at least the counting of votes even as the other 1,800-odd companies will be getting out of Bengal from Friday itself.ADGP Anand Kumar said 19 people were arrested on Wednesday besides the 687 preventive arrests.Election Commission of India received 77 complaints of vote-tampering, state chief electoral officer Manoj Agarwal said, adding that 23 of them were found to be “prima facie true.”Officials indicated a repoll could be ordered in these cases. Most of the complaints were from Falta, the officials said.
