Kolkata: Of 4,200 residents of Sonagachhi, Asia’s largest red-light district, 1,300 were deleted from the poll roll, bolstering the argument that a large number of socially and economically deprived women failed to make the SIR cut.During judicial adjudication, cases for 850 women from Sonagachhi were heard. All but one were rejected. The deletions occurred despite…
Kolkata: As the sun beat down, Munsi Rezaul Karim boarded a Khanakul-bound bus on Tuesday, armed with an appointment letter from EC, assigning him to Booth 140A at Basantapur Prathamik Vidyalaya as the third polling officer.What would have been a routine civic duty turned out to be a strange one this year. The EC may…
Kolkata: Several Indian citizens living in the city for generations had knocked on the door of the tribunal appellate authority when the SIR, conducted by the Election Commission, struck their names off the electoral roll. A judicial scrutiny later, when a number of them still found their names missing from the inclusion list issued on…
Kolkata: Lucky electors, whose appeals for restoration of their voting rights were cleared by the tribunals, felt they had a “much bigger responsibility” now as they could finally be able to vote despite the initial hurdles. In the previous elections, some of them had skipped voting but this time, they said, they would definitely vote…
Kolkata: As the city votes on Wednesday, the Kolkata Police Dog Squad has already deployed its newest members — Ina, Tina, Snoopy and Moon — to secure the city’s high-stakes political landscape. The four labradors, recently designated as “explosive experts”, transitioned directly from rigorous training to the frontline of VIP security and rally ground sanitisation.According…
Kolkata: A ‘Singham’ versus ‘Pushpa’ rivalry played out at Falta, around 40km from Kolkata, on Tuesday.On Monday, IPS officer and DIG Ajay Pal Sharma — an ‘encounter specialist’ popularly known as ‘Singham’ on his home turf in UP, visited the house of Falta’s Trinamool candidate Jahangir Khan and warned his kin “to be cautious”. A…
Kolkata: Over 2.3 lakh CAPF, 38,297 Bengal police personnel, 142 general observers, 95 police observers and 100 expenditure observers, and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) have thrown an unprecedented security blanket in seven poll-bound districts, including Kolkata, ahead of Wednesday’s election. In the past 72 hours alone, 2,348 ‘trouble mongers’ have been put behind bars…
Kolkata: Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) jawans led by a commandant knocked on the doors of Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim well past Monday midnight to have an interaction with him relating to the second-phase poll scheduled on Wednesday. The unscheduled meet proved to be ‘uncomfortable’ for the first citizen as he kept on finding the…
Kolkata: Central forces moved into residential complexes across the city on the eve of polling, taking charge of booths set up inside community halls — part of a first-time experiment that will see 57 gated complexes hosting polling stations this election.At Silver Spring off Bypass, a four-member contingent of central forces took control of booth…
Kolkata: After liquor, Election Commission has asked eateries that are within 100 metres of polling booth to stay closed. However, the 100-metre rule would vary from constituency to constituency. This has resulted in closure of more than 400 prominent eateries across the city on April 29 and, for some, both on April 28 and 29.According…
