Kolkata, April 24 (IANS) The Election Commission of India (ECI)’s tabulation till Thursday (April 23) midnight showed that the voting in the first phase of Assembly polls for 152 constituencies in West Bengal reached 92.88 per cent, a record high in the state’s electoral history.

However, this figure, 92.88 per cent of polling, is not the final figure since the final tabulation is yet to be arrived at, confirmed an insider from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal. He also said that once the final tabulation ends, the final and updated figure of the polling percentage, which could be higher, will be announced.

In fact, the record polling percentage in the electoral history of West Bengal was achieved at 5 p.m. on Thursday, an hour before the official time of conclusion of the polling process. The polling percentage figure was 89.93 at 5 p.m. on Thursday.

The previous record of polling percentage was in the 2011 West Bengal Assembly elections, the year which marked the end of the previous 34-year Left Front regime in the state and the beginning of the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress regime.

In the six-phase 2011 West Bengal Assembly polls, the average polling percentage was the highest in 15 years at 84.33 per cent, a record till it was broken on Thursday.

According to the CEO of West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, at the time of official completion of polling at 6 p.m. on Thursday, there were at least 5,000 polling booths in these 152 Assembly constituencies, where queues of voters continued. In those booths, the polling process continued till late evening.

In an overall peaceful polling on Thursday, a total of 41 arrests were made for attempts to disrupt the polling process. The total number of preventive arrests before the beginning of the polls on Thursday was 571.

According to Agrwal, one major reason behind the high polling percentage was that the polling was conducted after the deduction of absent, missing, shifted and duplicate voters from the voters’ list.

–IANS

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