Voting on in West Bengal

Kolkata, May 12 (IANS) Balloting is under way in West Bengal for the remaining 17 parliamentary seats of the state in the final stage of the Lok Sabha polls, officials said Monday.

The constituencies where voting is taking place are Baharampur, Krishnanagar, Ranaghat, Bangaon, Barrackpur, Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Diamond Harbour, Jadavpur, Kolkata Dakshin, Kolkata Uttar, Tamluk, Kanthi and Ghatal.

In Dum Dum, two former union ministers, Saugata Roy of the Trinamool and BJP's Tapan Sikdar, face Communist Party of India-Marxist's Asim Dasgupta, who was the state finance minister for 24 years.

Subhashini Ali of the CPI-M takes on Trinamool heavyweight and former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi in Barrackpore.

Famous magician P.C. Sorcar Junior is fighting on a BJP ticket from Barasat.

In Krishnanagar, outgoing Trinamool MP and Bengali film actor Tapas Pal is battling against former union minister and BJP'S Satyabrata Mukhopadhyay and CPI-M's Shantanu Jha.

CPI-M's Sujon Chakraborty is pitted against Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's grandnephew Sugata Bose (Trinamool) and painter Samir Aich (Congress) in Jadavpur.

A total of 188 candidates are in contention for the Lok Sabha seats. Besides, by-polls in two assembly constituencies are also taking place where nine candidates are contesting.

Balloting is taking place at 31,392 polling booths, where over 2.5 crore people are eligible to exercise their franchise.