Kolkata: More than 1.37 crore electorates will decide the fate of 418 candidates, including 34 women, in 62 constituencies on Thursday as campaign for the third phase of polling for the West Bengal assembly elections came to end on Tuesday evening.
A total of 1,37,42,000 electorates comprising 71,33,978 male, 65,79,218 female, 159 third gender and 28,645 service electors will cast their votes at 16,461 polling stations having 18,930 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and 1,214 Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system, including reserved.
The Election Commission, meanwhile, has prohibited political parties and candidates in West Bengal from giving any print advertisement without pre-certification on April 20-2 1 in connection with the third phase of polling.
In a statement, the EC said the decision has been taken in view of instances of advertisements of offending and misleading nature published in the print media. It said such advertisements in the last stage of the election vitiate the polling.
The candidates and parties will have to take pre-certification of the advertisement from the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee at the state and district level.
A similar direction has also been issued to all newspapers in the state not to publish any advertisement on these two days which has not been approved by the poll body.
