Kolkata: Polling to the Nandigram and Sujapur Assembly seats in West Bengal passed off peacefully with both the sections recording an intense turnout of voters at 80 and
78 per cent, respectively.

Polling in some parts continued well after the stipulated hours.

Elaborate security arrangements were seen at each booth, with security personnel frisking voters with metal detectors. Every booth had a video recording facility.

However, the elections were not entirely without any complaints. Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee alleged that the electronic voting machines in some of the booths were malfunctioning while many of his party supporters were threatened by Communist party of India (Marxist) activists. A local Trinamool leader, Subhendu Adhikary said, "An eight-year-old child and three women were seriously injured when CPI(M) men attacked them on their way to the booth."

On the other hand, Biman Bose, Chairman of the Left Front Committee, said: "Many of our supporters were threatened and their voter identity cards snatched away. Some were also assaulted."

While the Nandigram seat fell vacant following the "forced" resignation of CPI MLA Md Elias on alleged corruption charges, polls were necessitated at Malda due to the death of Congress MLA Rubi Noor.

The bypolls were taken as a prestige issue both by the Left and the Congress-Trinamool alliance. While the CPI had fielded Paramananda Bharati against Trinamool's Firoza Bibi from Nandigram, at Sujapur it was a contest between Congress' Mausam Benajur Noor, the daughter of the late MLA, and CPI (M) candidate Hazi Ketabuddin.