West Bengal bye-election: 30.6% voter turnout recorded in Kaliganj till 11am
Polling officials recorded a voter turnout of 30.6% till 11 am in the Kaliganj assembly seat bye-election as the process went on smoothly in the first half of the day in West Bengal's Nadia district on Thursday.
The bye-election was necessitated due to the sudden demise of Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA Nasiruddin Ahmed in February this year. Counting of votes will be held on June 23.
'Voting was going on peacefully with no reports of any untoward incidents,' said a poll panel official in West Bengal.
While the ruling TMC has fielded Alifa Ahmed, daughter of the former MLA and an IT engineer by profession, the BJP has fielded Ashis Ghosh, a businessman, as its candidate. The Congress, meanwhile, has fielded Kabil Uddin Shaikh with the support of the CPI(M).
Kaliganj has a Muslim voter population of around 54%, along with SCs (14%) and STs (0.42%). It is predominantly rural, with more than 90% rural and around 9% urban population, as per Census 2011.
The TMC had first won the seat in 2011 after it came to power ending the 34-year-old Left regime when Nasiruddin Ahmed was elected. In 2016, he lost the seat to Congress-CPM alliance candidate Sheikh Hasanuzzaman. However, Hasanuzzaman later joined Trinamool. Nasiruddin reclaimed the Kaliganj seat in the 2021 Assembly polls. The seat fell vacant after his demise.
The bye-election is being seen as a litmus test for both the ruling TMC and its arch rival the BJP ahead of the 2026 assembly elections.
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