The candidature of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Birbhum, Debasish Dhar’s nomination was on Friday cancelled after he failed to produce the 'No Due Certificate'. Debasish Dhar had earlier resigned as IPS last month. Former IPS Debasis Dhar was nominated but he could not file the final release order after resignation. Sensing this earlier BJP finalised the nomination of Debatanu Bhattacharya on the last day. Now he would be official candidate of BJP according to sources.
Meanwhile, over 31 per cent of 51.17 lakh voters exercised their franchise till 11 am in three Lok Sabha constituencies of West Bengal, an Election Commission official said on Friday. Polling began at 7 am in Darjeeling, Balurghat and Raiganj Lok Sabha constituencies and would continue till 6 pm.
Darjeeling recorded the highest voter turnout of 32.75 per cent, while Raiganj and Balurghat registered 32.51 per cent and 28.11 per cent polling, respectively, he said. The commission has so far received 290 complaints, mostly related to EVM malfunctioning, the official said. A total of 47 candidates, including state BJP president Sukanta Majumdar, are in the fray for the three seats in the second phase.
