Two by-polls held peacefully in West Bengal

Around 67 per cent of the electorate exercised their franchise right on Tuesday in the by-elections at Bankura in West Bengal while the figure was 73 per cent at Daspur, officials said.

State Chief Electoral Officer Sunil Gupta said polling remained incident-free and peaceful in both the constituencies.

Attributing the dip in poll percentage to the rise in mercury levels, officials said that during the last assembly elections, 81.7 per cent of the voters had cast their votes in Daspur while in Bankura the figure was around 79.4 per cent.

While Daspur in West Midnapore district has an electorate of 2.48 lakh, Bankura sadar constituency has 2.19 lakh voters.

The by-elections to Bankura and Daspur in the Maoist-hit districts were caused by the death of Trinamool Congress legislators there.

Kashinath Mishra of TMC had won the Bankura seat last year by defeating the CPI(M) candidate by a margin of 29,090 votes while Ajit Bhunia of TMC had defeated his CPI(M) rival in Daspur by a margin of about 25,000 votes.

Misra's wife Minati has been fielded by TMC in Bankura while Bhuniya's wife is in fray from Daspur as TMC nominee.

CPI(M) has fielded Samar Mukherjee in Daspur constituency and Nilanjan Dasgupta in Bankura.

BJP too has fielded its candidates in both the seats.

Congress, however, did not put up candidate in any of the two seats.