West Bengal 5th Phase Voting: Covid Shadow Looms Over Elections As Candidates Test Positive

Bengal reported 646 cases on March 27 (the first day of polling) and nearly 7,000 on Friday. EC has directed candidates to wear face masks, and said that that it would be the duty of rally organisers to ensure that the thousands of attendees also wore faces masks, maintained social distancing

Election Rally in West Bengal (Image: PTI)

 Bengal is voting for 45 of 294 seats today in the fifth - and biggest - of its eight poll phases, which are being held amid a surge in Covid cases as the country has been reporting a spike of over 2 lakh cases daily.

On Friday, three Trinamool candidates - from Goalpokhar, Tapan and Jalpaiguri - tested positive for COVID-19. A BJP candidate - from the Matigara-Naxalbari seat - has also tested positive. 

Revolutionary Socialist Party candidate Pradip Kumar Nandi, who tested positive for COVID-19 four days ago, died at a hospital here on Friday. Nandi, 73, the party’s nominee from the Jangipur assembly constituency in Murshidabad district in the ongoing West Bengal assembly elections, was in home isolation and taken to the Berhampore hospital on Thursday night after his condition deteriorated.

The Congress' Rezaul Haque - standing from Murshidabad's Samsherganj also died from Covid-related complications.

Also on Friday evening, the Election Commission ordered a 72-hour 'silence period', instead of the usual 48 hours, ahead of the remaining rounds of voting. The poll body cited the Covid pandemic and also said election rallies and meetings - on days when campaigning is allowed - would be banned between 7 pm and 10 am.

The Commission, criticised for not enforcing Covid protocols - openly violated by political leaders, including those from the BJP - also said all candidates had to wear face masks, and that it would be the duty of rally organisers to ensure that the thousands of attendees also wore faces masks, maintained social distancing and used hand sanitisers.

Covid tally In West Bengal

The COVID-19 tally in West Bengal mounted to 6,43,795 on Friday after the highest- single-day spike of 6,910 new cases was reported in the state, the health department said in a bulletin. The death toll in the state rose to 10,506 after 26 fresh fatalities were registered in the last 24 hours, it said.

Kolkata also accounted for the highest single-day jump of 1,844 new cases as well as nine deaths, the bulletin said. At least 2,818 patients recovered from the disease as the discharge rate now is 91.99 per cent.

Since Thursday, 40,153 samples were tested for COVID- 19 in West Bengal taking the total number of such tests to 97,15,115, the bulletin added.

(With PTI inputs)