Amid rising cases of new Covid infections in the district, elections for the six assembly constituencies were largely peaceful, except for some sporadic incidents, today. Officials said the voter turnout was over 80 percent.

As polling began early today, sporadic incidents of alleged lathi-charge by central forces and blocking of voters headed for their polling stations were reported from across the constituencies, even as a panchayat pradhan of the Trinamul Congress was seen acting as the booth agent in the Malatipur constituency.

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Sanyukta Morcha candidate Alberuni Zulkarnine has filed a complaint with the ECI against the pradhan and accused her of influencing voters in booth No 148. According to sources, Serina Bibi, the pradhan of the Sripur gram panchayat and the wife of a local TMC leader Mohabbat Khan, was spotted carrying out work of a booth agent of the TMC at the Kmargunj High School.

“My party assigned me for this and I did it. If it was against the rules then the presiding officer should have stopped me,” Ms Bibi, however, said. Mr Zulkarnine, on the other hand, alleged, “How could a pradhan sit in the booth as an agent and influence the voters? I have filed a complaint with the ECI in writing.”

On the other hand, TMC candidate of Habibpur, Pradip Baskey, allegedly visited booths with party symbols in his dresses and engaged himself in “heated discussions” with the central forces in some of the booths over this. BJP candidate and outgoing MLA there, Joel Murmu, said, “One cannot enter the booth premises with his party symbol shown on his clothes, but he turned a deaf ear to requests. Filing a complaint with the ECI was the only option we had.”

Mr Baskey refuted the charges and accused the BJP candidate of leveling false allegations. Among others, a TMC poll camp at Bulbulchandi in the Habibpur constituency and two such booths in Malatipur were allegedly vandalized by the central forces.

Allegations of lathi-charge by the forces also came in from the 55A booth in Chanchal, 188 in Malatipur, and 182 A and 183 under Harishchandrapur constituency. Moreover, a couple was also allegedly beaten up by the central forces when they were going to cast their votes in the 188 booth in Malatipur. They had to be hospitalized later, sources said.