WEST BENGAL VILLAGE BOYCOTT VOTING

More than 500 voters of Charjadubati village in the Kalyani assembly segment of the Bongaon Lok Sabha constituency have boycotted the polls demanding land rights, drinking water, roads and electricity.

No voter turned up at the polling booth at Charjadubati Primary School in the assembly segment in Nadia district, official sources said.

Meanwhile, around 15 per cent voter turnout was recorded till 10:00 am in elections to 11 Lok Sabha constituencies in the last phase of the polls in West Bengal on Wednesday, the election office said.

The situation was peaceful and incident free, Chief Electoral Officer Debashis Sen said.

"Strict arrangements have been made in all constituencies and most booths have been declared sensitive. Armed police have been deputed in all booths in the 11 constituencies," Sen said.

However, according to police, a tiffin box found in a booth in Garifa High School under the Barrackpore constituency created a scare and the bomb disposal squad was called in.

But the polling process was not disturbed, they said.

One person, Saminul Haque, was killed before polling began in a clash between Trinamool Congress and CPM supporters at Baliguri on the outskirts of Kolkata, the police added.

The 11 constituencies where polling is taking place are two in the metropolis -- Kolkata South and Kolkata North, four in South 24 Parganas -- Diamond Harbour, Mathurapur, Joynagar and Jadavpur and five in North 24 Parganas -- Dum Dum, Barrackpore, Barasat, Basirhat and Bongaon.

CAN YOU TRUST CONGRESS

General elections are going to be held. Most likely this time too, it will be Congress party leading a coalition government at the Centre. But can you really trust them?

Having ruled the country for more than 45 years since Independence, they hardly have any achievements to claim for. Each year, there are more people below the poverty line, half of India's children are malnourished, corruption is rampant, basic education is inaccessible to almost half of India's children, infrastructure is shoddy.

They always bring up sops for the poor in their manifestos, adorned slogans like "Garibi Hatao", but do they care after they are elected? Even if they care, do they ensure that all their programs to alleviate poverty and uplift the poor are being implemented within a definite timeframe and that the funding for these programs is really being used constructively? The middlemen consume more than half of this money and there's hardly anything left after that.

These very people who are poor and illiterate are their vote banks. Its in their best interest that they stay illiterate else they will not get elected again.

Sadly, there's a complete vacuum when it comes to electing a leader in this country. Other parties including BJP don't have the leaders who can take this country forward and bring prosperity, which is very sad.

I do believe that other parties should get a fair chance to run the country. It is time we think beyond the Congress party and dream of India that is prosperous, secure and secular.