A teenager died and his two friends injured on Monday after a bomb they mistook as ball exploded at Pandua in Hooghly district of Bengal triggering war of words between the rival political outfits. The incident occurred a day ahead of the State going to the third phase of polling in four minority-dominated seats of North and South Malda, Jangipur and Murshidabad.Three boys suffered grievous injuries when the bomb exploded but one of them passed away at the Chinsurah Imambarah Hospital, police said adding one person had been arrested in connection with the blast. The conditions of the other two injured persons was also said to be critical.
Even as intense war of words ensued between sitting BJP MP Locket Chatterjee and the Trinamool Congress with the former staging a dharna at Chinsurah demanding the arrest of the culprits and alleging that the “TMC is readying its bombs to scare away the votes,” State Trinamool Congress vice president Jaiprakash Majumdar said it was a BJP ploy to disturb the rally of his party’s general secretary Abhishek Banerjee who was to address a meeting in Hooghly on Tuesday.
Bombs were also recovered by the security forces at Jangipur and Sagarpara in Murshidabad district where two parliamentary constituencies were going to polls on Tuesday. The bomb squad of the state police defused the socket bombs that were kept in a field at Jangipur. At Sagarpara in Jalangi block the police defused another bag full of crude bombs likely to have been kept for use in the elections, sources said.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission had arranged for a massive security bandobast for the third phase of polling in four constituencies in two districts of Bengal.
While about 7.3 million voters were likely to exercise their franchise — in 7,360 polling stations — in these four constituencies where the main electoral issues are going to be unemployment, migrant labour, sagging bidi industry, infiltration, Ganga erosioin and Citizenship Amendment Act sources said.
Demographically Malda and Murshidabad are the two districts where the Muslim population is in majority. While Malda has about 57 per cent Muslim population, Murshidabad has about 68 percent of minority voters. If Murshidabad district headquarters Behrampore — from where Adhir Chowdhury and Yusuf Pathan are contesting — which is not going to polls in this round is taken out then the number of Muslim voters could go up to 72 per cent.
