A day after ordering repolls in Diamond Harbour and Magrahat Paschim, the Election Commission of India has ordered re-elections in Falta assembly constituency of West Bengal.
All 285 polling booths in Falta will go to polls on May 21. Counting of votes for the constituency will take place on May 24, according to EC officials. The constituency comes under South 24 Parganas district.
The EC has ordered that all the contesting candidates should be informed in writing about the fresh polls. It also directed officials to give publicity about the re-election in the polling areas.
The repolls are necessitated after several electoral offences were reported in the constituency. At least 32 complaints were filed, seeking repolls in Falta.
The EC's move comes after hundreds of villagers protested for over seven hours in Falta, alleging they were receiving death threats from TMC workers in the area. Some of the women protesters holding BJP flags alleged that Israfil Chowkidar, a close aide of TMC candidate Jehangir Khan, threatened to harm them after the results are revealed on May 4.
However, Khan claimed that the women were "deployed" by the BJP to stage protests and engineer the arrest of TMC functionaries to "harm the morale of the TMC supporters".
The poll panel has sought a report from district administration regarding the protests.
On May 2, 15 polling booths in South 24 Parganas saw repolls. These include 11 booths in Margrahat Paschim and four poll stations in Diamand Harbour.