Final phase of campaign ends in Bengal

Campaigning for the last phase of polling ended in nine parliamentary constituencies of West Bengal after an EC directive on Wednesday advanced the deadline by around 19 hours. The state will vote in the final phase of Lok Sabha polls on May 19.

Kolkata: With the Election Commission curtailing the campaigning time by invoking the Constitution's Article 324 for the first time, election campaign for the final phase of polling in West Bengal ended at 10 pm on Thursday, almost 19 hours ahead of scheduled deadline of Friday at 5 pm. Polling for nine parliamentary constituencies in the state will be held on Sunday.

The political parties re-scheduled and expedited their planned rallies, road shows, street meeting and last minute door-to-door contact with voters that had reached its peak in the past couple of days in Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Diamond Harbour, Jadavpur, Kolkata South and Kolkata North constituencies where voting will be held on Sunday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP President Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, the party's celebrity candidates Nusrat Jahan and Mimi Chakraborty, CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury were among the star campaigners in the last few days of campaigning in WB.

Shah's roadshow in the heart of the city on Tuesday faced strong protests from Trinamool's student union members as the procession crossed the College Street area. The clash between activists of the two parties led to violence and vandalism following which the poll panel on Wednesday stepped in to curtail the campaigning.

An electorate of around 1,49,10,643 will decide the fate of 111 candidates in the nine seats.

Chief Minister's nephew and sitting MP Abhishek Banerjee, former Kolkata Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, MP Sudip Bandopadhyay, BJP's former state President Rahul Sinha, celebrity candidates Nusrat Jahan and Mimi Chakraborty are among the big names for the seventh and last phase of polling in the state that underwent voting in all phases.

According to an analysis done by the West Bengal Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms, 30 candidates have assets worth over Rs 1 crore and 23 have declared criminal cases against themselves.

In 2014, Trinamool had won all the nine seats but this time BJP is giving them a strong fight.