Alipurduar: Around 18.12 per cent of voters exercised their franchise in the first couple of hours of polling in two parliamentary constituencies in West Bengal on Thursday, an election official said. Polling began at 7 am in Cooch Behar and Alipurduar, where a total of 34,51,883 electorate will decide the fate of 18 candidates.

Around 50 per cent of the polling stations in the two Lok Sabha constituencies are under the watch of paramilitary personnel, besides an adequate number of state forces, to ensure a free and fair elections. However, Trinamool Congress leader and North Bengal Development Minister Rabindranath Ghosh alleged that in several booths, EVMs are malfunctioning. Ghosh claimed that it could be part of a conspiracy to manipulate votes. "I have never seen such an election process ever in my life. Jut within two hours, there were so many EVMs which have been malfunctioning. It can be a part of a conspiracy. I have been calling the observers and nobody is picking up my calls," Ghosh told PTI.