Most political parties in Bengal are anxious about the comparatively lower percentage of voting in the first round of elections that took place on April 19 in three constituencies of Cooch Behar, Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri. 

According to Election Commission sources the three constituencies of North Bengal have witnessed about 81.91 percent polling. This is about 1.5 percent less than the voting percentage in 2019 when about 83.66 percent voters cast their votes.

While Jalpaiguri recorded highest 83.66 percent voting, Cooch Behar witnessed 82.17 percent voters turning out to vote. Alipurduar politically the coolest of the three seats saw 79.76 voters exercising their franchise.

In 2019 Cooch Behar saw 84 percent polling, Alipurdur witnessed about 84 percent voters’ turnout in Jalpaiguri the figure was 86.51 percent.

While polling in the vicinity of 80-81 percent is quite high by the north Indian standards in Bengal it is quite on the lower side and is a cause of concern for the politicians and psephologists. While all the parties publicly claimed that the lower percentage of votes meant that it was going in their favour privately most of remained tensed.

“Lesser percentage of votes may indicate three things,” BK Haldar a professor of political science said. “First it could be because due to stricter security bandobast 2 percent bogus voters were filtered out … or it could also be that voters remained indoors because of heat … but that may not be the plausible reason because unlike in South Bengal there is no heat-wave like condition in North Bengal which is adjacent to Himalayan Terrai region … the third reason could be disinterest among the people because they do not want to vote,” he said.

However a senior journalist at Siliguri said, “both the BJP and the TMC are a tad worried about the possible rise in the vote percentage of the Left which though will not win is sure to hurt either of the sides … this is the reason why we saw maximum booth capture by the TMC men the Left bastions in Jalpaiguri.” No Left leader would choose to react.

The TMC on the other hand said that the fall of vote percentage was because the infighting in BJP particularly in Alipurduar where the party preferred a sitting MLA Manoj Tigga to the outgoing MP John Barla. “Can you imagine a drop of 5 percent … it means that Barla has played a game,” a local TMC leader Arup Dasgupta said adding TMC is winning two out of three seats denying the general perception that his party has already suffered a defeat in this area.