How LS candidates are preparing for counting day

With the campaign frenzy now a fading echo and the polls over, a palpable tension gripped the air as candidates of various political parties faced the anxious moments for the electronic voting machines to be opened.

To pass that time, some candidates preferred to stay with the party workers, others decided to take some rest after the heat and dust of electioneering, while some others took timeout to meet parents before the results were announced.

Sougata Roy, veteran TMC MP from the Dum Dum, is one such candidate who is making the most of this period by giving time to himself.

“I read books and sleep during this period,” he said while talking to PTI.

However, not everyone spends the way Roy does.

For Bharatiya Janata Party's Medinipur candidate Agnimitra Paul, there is “no time to die or rest”.

“I have lots of work to do before the EVM machines are opened for counting of votes. Setting up camps near the counting centres, selecting and briefing the counting agents along with other party workers - I have been busy with all these,” Paul said.

For one day, she had to go to Durgapur as her mother was unwell, she said.

BJP candidate from Bardhaman-Durgapur constituency Dilip Ghosh said that he had to make a whirlwind tour of various constituencies and only got one-and-a-half months to campaign in his seat.

Now he is in his constituency with his party activists and counting agents.

Sujan Chakraborty, Communist Party of India-Marxist candidate from Dum Dum Lok Sabha constituency said, “I just had a few moments to spend with my mother when I visited Midnapore recently. I had no time for myself after polling was held in my constituency since I have campaigned for other candidates of my party.”

“I am an active worker of the party and it is a 365-day job. I am back doing my regular job after the polls were over in Dum Dum constituency on June 1,” Chakraborty said.

The Left leader said that besides attending party meetings he visited all those workers who were attacked and beaten up by our rival party during and after the polls, Chakraborty added.

The feeling is strange now, TMC sitting MP and Birbhum candidate Satabdi Roy said.

"It's like the situation after a war is over…everything is so quiet. In this waiting period, the feeling like that of a student who is waiting for the exam results or like the person who is about to meet her or his love for the first time in person,” the actor-turned-politician said.

Roy also said that tonight she is going to attend several meetings with her workers in her constituency.