Kolkata (West Bengal): Polling for the formation of new boards for four municipal corporations namely Bidhannagar, Siliguri, Chandernagor and Asansol began in West Bengal on Saturday. The polling began at 7 am and will be held till 5 pm. Altogether, 203 candidates are contesting in 41 wards in Bidhannagar, while 200 are in the fray in 47 wards of the Siliguri civic body, as per the SEC website.
There are 120 aspirants for 33 wards in Chandannagar and 430 candidates are contesting in 106 wards in Asansol.
The counting of the votes will be held on February 14.
In 2015, the Left Front had won the Siliguri civic body election, while the three other municipal corporations were secured by the TMC.
Special police arrangements have been made for Vidyanagar to wrap the entire municipal corporation area under blanket security cover.
However, as per the decision of the State Election Commission, West Bengal, the security for the polls for these municipal corporations is manned by the state police forces and not by central armed forces.
Additional director general of Special Task Force (STF) and Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Gyanwant Singh is in charge of supervising the security arrangements at Vidyanagar. He will be assisted inspector general of |CID, Ananda Kumar and the commissioner of Vidyanagar City Police, Sanjay Singh.
Although the West Bengal unit BJP demanded deployment of central armed forces, their plea was rejected by the state election commission.
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