Lagatar24 Desk
Kolkata, July 10: Revoting started at 7 a.m. on Monday in 696 booths spread across 19 districts in West Bengal where voting for the panchayat elections was cancelled due to claims of ballot box tampering and violence that claimed 15 lives, officials said.
They stated that in addition to state police, four central forces would be stationed at each of those booths throughout the re-voting, which would take place until 5 p.m.
Murshidabad, one of the districts where repolling was taking place, has the highest number of booths at 175, followed by Malda, with 109, they added.
Re-voting was also taking place at 89 booths in Nadia. Cooch Behar was next with 53, North 24 Parganas with 46, Uttar Dinajpur with 42, South 24 Parganas with 36, Purba Medinipur with 31 and Hooghly with 29 booths, according to officials.
They claimed that no re-voting was mandated in the districts of Darjeeling, Jhargram and Kalimpong.
The State Election Commission (SEC), after assessing reports of violence and tampering with ballot boxes and ballot papers, decided to rerun the election in these 696 booths, they stated.
For the three-tier panchayat elections, voting took place on Saturday in over 61,000 booths. Voting boxes were stolen, burned and dumped in ponds in a number of locations, sparking unrest.
2.06 lakh candidates ran for 73,887 panchayat seats and a total of 5.67 crore people residing in rural sections of the state were allowed to vote on their viability.
