The fourth phase of the West Bengal Assembly election on Monday recorded a 78% voter turnout till 5 pm, according to the Election Commission. As the North 24-Parganas, including Bidhannagar and Howrah districts of West Bengal went to the polls, the EC had made strict security arrangements in and around polling booths to avoid a repeat of the violence that hit the third phase.

Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Roopa Ganguly got into a scuffle with Trinamool Congress workers in Howrah, and a First Information Report was registered against the actor-turned-politician, reported ANI. Voters in Salkia also alleged that TMC members were forcing them to vote for the ruling party.

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BJP's Roopa Ganguly caught on camera hitting a TMC worker:

Monday was the fifth day out of seven days of polling spread over a month in the eastern state. There are 345 candidates in the fray for 33 seats in North 24-Parganas and 16 seats in Howrah, but only 40 of them are women. The fourth phase will be decisive for several Trinamool Congress ministers like Amit Mitra, Purnendu Basu, Chandrima Bhattacharya, Bratya Basu, Jyotipriyo Mullick and Aroop Roy, as more than 1 crore voters exercise their franchise to elect the state's next government.

As many as 90,000 security personnel including central armed forces were deployed at polling booths, with special focus on Salt Lake City (Bidhannagar). The Election Commission's decision to step up security came after a CPI(M) worker was killed during the third phase of the elections on April 21.

The EC said that 22,000 state police personnel would assist the central force contingent of 672 companies. The poll watchdog also appointed five IAS officers and 1,100 mobile surveillance teams to monitor the law-and-order situation. The EC identified around 5,500 vulnerable voters who have received threats, and as many as 1,400 trouble makers were "bound down" by the district authorities to avoid any untoward incident.