Covid ward in West Bengal's Raiganj converted into polling booth, locals protest

Locals of Indira Colony in West Bengal's Raiganj staged a protest on Wednesday following the conversion of a COVID-19 ward inside Raiganj Medical College into a polling booth ahead of the sixth phase of polling in the state.

The protesters said that they are wary of getting infected with coronavirus on the polling day.

"We cannot cast our votes there as it is unsafe. We are not sure if the area has been stised and we will not go inside. We have a family to feed. The government is giving lectures on COVID-19 behaviour and then making us vote in such places. We need a new booth," said a protestor.

"We put a roadblock protesting against the decision to make the COVID-19 ward into a polling booth and demanding a new polling booth", said Sumit another protester.

Local residents of the colony set up a roadblock for hours protesting against setting up a polling booth in the COVID-19 ward. Following the protest, the authorities stised the booth.

West Bengal reported 10,784 fresh COVID-19 cases, 5,616 discharges, and 58 deaths in the last 24 hours, as per the state health bulletin on Wednesday evening. The state currently has 63,496active cases while so far, 10,710 people have lost their lives due to the deadly disease.

Polling for the sixth phase of the ongoing assembly elections in West Bengal will begin at 7 am on Thursday.

As many as 306 candidates, including 27 women, are in the fray in this phase of the assembly elections where polling will be held in 43 constituencies in four districts.

Over 1.03 crore voters, including 50.65 lakh women and 256 of the third gender, will be deciding the fate of these candidates across 14,480 polling stations in the sixth phase.

( With inputs from ANI )