Women line up to vote in Nandigram as a security jawan watches. (Bishwarup Dutta)

Nandigram/Malda, Jan. 5: Barring a few skirmishes and a booth rigging false alarm, the Assembly bypolls in Nandigram in East Midnapore and Sujapur in Malda were peaceful today.

“In Nandigram there was 84 per cent polling, in Sujapur it was 81 per cent,” said Debashis Sen, the chief electoral officer. The results will be declared on January 9.

Polling in Nandigram began amid tight security as all 278 booths had been declared sensitive. In all, 15 companies of central forces were deployed. Metal detectors were erected in some booths considered “hypersensitive”.

Ten booths in Nandigram reported delay in polling by 30 minutes to an hour because the electronic voting machines were found to be defective. Polling started after the machines were replaced. In some booths, polling continued well after 4pm, the end of voting time.

The bypoll in Nandigram was necessitated by the resignation of CPI MLA Mohammad Ilyas after a sting operation exposed his involvement in a corruption case.

The main contenders in the bypoll are schoolteacher Parmananda Bharati of the CPI and Feroza Bibi of the Trinamul Congress. Feroza lost her youngest son in the March 14, 2007 police firing. The Trinamul has dubbed its candidate Shahider Ma (Martyr’s Mother).

“No big incident was reported in Nandigram during polling. Some stray incidents were reported from Reyapara and Satengabari,” said Praveen Kumar, deputy inspector-general (Midnapore range).

Ten persons were injured in Reyapara in Nandigram block II when alleged CPM activists attacked villagers with rods and sticks, about 500m from the polling booth. The injured were taken to hospitals nearby.

About a dozen others were injured in Satengabari, which has a considerable CPM presence. Around 8am, CPM and Trinamul activists tried to prevent voters belonging to the other’s camp from reaching the booth. Supporters of both parties were injured in the fisticuffs that followed.

CPM state secretary Biman Bose complained of “low key terror by the Trinamul Congress”. “Our supporters were threatened and their voter cards were snatched in some places by the Opposition’s supporters,” Bose said.

In Sujapur, Congress candidate Mausam Noor, the niece of the late A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhury, went from booth to booth monitoring proceedings with her uncle, Malda Congress MP Abu Hasem Khan Chowdhury and district party general secretary Hasan Ali Shah. “The polling had been peaceful at all places,” Mausam said.

Khan Chowdhury called up the Malda district magistrate Sridhar Ghosh and told him the CPM was rigging the polling at Bamongola, but no truth was found in the complaint. Later Khan Chowdhury apologised to Ghosh.

For over five decades, the Khan Chowdhurys have been winning the Sujapur seat for the Congress. A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhury won it first and his sister Ruby Noor continued the family tradition. Her death necessitated the bypoll.