{"id":13527,"date":"2026-04-23T17:38:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/?p=13527"},"modified":"2026-04-23T17:38:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:38:46","slug":"130474866-cms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/?p=13527","title":{"rendered":"\u2018EC salutes voters\u2019: Tamil Nadu, West Bengal record highest-ever turnout since Independence | India News &#8211; The Times of India"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"e9jwa\">\n<div class=\"vdo_embedd\">\n<div class=\"GfdvZ\">\n<section class=\"_bIDB  clearfix id-r-component leadmedia undefined undefined  E9tg9 \" style=\"top:0px\">\n<div class=\"_bIDB\" data-ua-type=\"1\" onclick=\"stpPgtnAndPrvntDefault(event)\">\n<div class=\"ypVvZ\">\n<div class=\"WGttI\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/msid-130474857,imgsize-315434,width-400,height-225,resizemode-4\/wb-polls-voting-in-nandigram.jpg\" alt=\"\u2018EC salutes voters\u2019: Tamil Nadu, West Bengal record highest-ever turnout since Independence\" title=\"Nandigram: People show their ink-marked fingers after casting votes during the first phase of the West Bengal Assembly election, in Nandigram, Purba Medinipur district. (PTI Photo\/Manvender Vashist Lav) \" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"Ta7d_ img_cptn\"><span title=\"Nandigram: People show their ink-marked fingers after casting votes during the first phase of the West Bengal Assembly election, in Nandigram, Purba Medinipur district. (PTI Photo\/Manvender Vashist Lav) \">Nandigram: People show their ink-marked fingers after casting votes during the first phase of the West Bengal Assembly election, in Nandigram, Purba Medinipur district. (PTI Photo\/Manvender Vashist Lav) <\/span><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>NEW DELHI: Tamil Nadu and West Bengal recorded bumper polling on Thursday, with the Election Commission (ECI) saying both states saw their highest-ever voter turnout since Independence as voting ended at 6 pm.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"2\"\/>Polling concluded at 6pm, with West Bengal recording a turnout of 91.91% in the first of two phases, while Tamil Nadu saw 84.80% voting, according to the latest data by the ECI.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"4\"\/>\u201cHighest-ever polling percentage in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu since Independence \u2014 the ECI salutes every voter,\u201d Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said, according to ANI.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"6\"\/>Several districts in West Bengal recorded over 90% turnout, led by Dakshin Dinajpur (94.85%), followed by Cooch Behar (94.54%), Birbhum (93.70%), Jalpaiguri (93.23%) and Murshidabad (92.93%).<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"10\"\/>Tamil Nadu also saw strong participation, with Karur leading at 92.48%, followed by Salem (90.42%), Dharmapuri (90.02%), Erode (89.97%) and Namakkal (89.63%).<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"12\"\/>Significantly, in West Bengal, female turnout reached a record 92.69%, compared to 90.92% for men. Similarly, in Tamil Nadu, 85.76% of women voted, while male participation stood at 83.57%.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"14\"\/>Polling for all 234 assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu and 152 of 294 seats in West Bengal began at 7 am amid tight security. Voting for the remaining 142 seats in West Bengal will be held on April 29.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"18\"\/>Counting of votes in both states is scheduled for May 4.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"20\"\/>In West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee and the TMC have been in power since 2011, with the chief minister now seeking a fourth consecutive term. The BJP is the principal challenger after its best-ever performance in the state in 2021.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"22\"\/>In Tamil Nadu, the DMK, which heads the Secular Progressive Alliance, is in power. Its main challenger is the National Democratic Alliance, led in the state by the DMK\u2019s arch-rival, the AIADMK.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"24\"\/>In the 2021 assembly elections, voter turnout stood at 85.2% in West Bengal and 76.6% in Tamil Nadu.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"26\"\/><\/div>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/india\/ec-salutes-voters-tamil-nadu-west-bengal-record-highest-ever-turnout-since-independence\/articleshow\/130474866.cms\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nandigram: People show their ink-marked fingers after casting votes during the first phase of the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[724,32293,1107,723,719,720,721,32292,32291,722,22911],"class_list":["post-13527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-breaking-news","tag-dmk-aiadmk-rivalry","tag-election-commission-of-india","tag-google-news","tag-india","tag-india-news","tag-india-news-today","tag-mamata-banerjee-tmc","tag-tamil-nadu-voter-turnout","tag-today-news","tag-west-bengal-elections-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}