Kolkata: Polling began on Wednesday morning in 75 constituencies for the crucial third phase of the six-phase Assembly elections in West Bengal amidst tight security.
An electorate of 1.44 crore will decide the fate of 479 candidates including Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and 11 ministers.
Over 6000 Central para-military forces have been deployed for peaceful polling in 11 seats in Kolkata, 33 in neighbouring North 24-Parganas and 31 in South 24-Parganas districts which have 17,792 polling booths.
Besides Bhattacharjee, other prominent candidates are Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta, Housing Minister Goutam Deb, Transport Minister Ranjit Kundu, the Leader of the Opposition Partha Chatterjee, Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee, former FICCI Secretary General Amit Mitra and cinestar Debashree Roy.
The six-phased election is scheduled to end on May 10.