West Bengal: BSF jawan dies at polling booth in Birbhum

Siliguri (West Bengal) [India], May 13 (ANI): In a tragic incident, one Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) of the Border Security Force, who was deployed at a booth in Birbhum district for election duty died after suffering from chest pain on Monday, officials said.

According to the officials of BSF, the deceased ASI has been identified as Mahendra Singh (55).

"ASI Mahendra Singh (55) years old, a BSF soldier, resident of Uttarakhand's Garwal posted at STC Sakugara under 195 battalion, was declared dead after suffering from chest pain while he was on election duty at a booth in Birbhum district," the security forces said.

The officials further informed that after the post-mortem, the body will be handed over to the attendant officers.

Voting for the fourth phase of the Lok Sabha elections in 96 Parliamentary Constituencies across nine states and one Union Territory began on Monday at 7:00 am. Eight seats in West Bengal have gone to the polls today.

Though still a part of the Opposition bloc--INDIA, the TMC chose to go it alone in Bengal and announced candidates for all 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

The Congress and the Left Front have a seat-sharing arrangement in the state under which the Left parties contest 30 seats and the Congress contests the remaining 12 seats.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the TMC took the lion's share of the electoral spoils in the state, at 34, while the BJP had to be content with just 2 seats. The CPI(M) and the Congress won 2 and 4 seats, respectively.

However, in a poll stunner that few saw coming, the BJP turned the tables on the ruling TMC in the 2019 polls, winning 18 seats. The ruling party in the state saw its tally reduced to 22. The Congress fared a lowly third in the tally with just 2 seats while the Left Front was down to just a lone seat. (ANI)