The panchayat elections of 2023 recorded a turnout of 80.71 per cent with over 14 per cent of the votes being cast well after the closing time of 5pm on Saturday.

The steep rise in the polling percentage after 5pm on Saturday — when it was 66.28 per cent — prompted Opposition parties to allege widespread malpractices.

Lakhs of Bengal’s 5.47 crore electors queued up to vote after 5pm and the polling went on till dawn on Sunday at several booths.

The state has had a history of high voter turnouts with over 80 per cent polling being recorded in all local and general elections in recent memory.

Numerous officials involved in the election process said there was nothing unusual about large numbers of voters turning up after 5pm on Saturday.

However, the Opposition parties alleged malpractices at thousands of booths across the state had contributed to the jump in the polling percentage after the closing time.

“The maximum rigging happened after 5pm yesterday (Saturday). This absurd voting after the deadline is a method of rigging and this happened all over the state,” said CPM central committee member Samik Lahiri, who alleged that the Trinamul Congress had rigged the elections at over 500 booths in South 24-Parganas alone.

Bankura, East Midnapore and Birbhum are among the districts that recorded the highest voter turnouts after 5pm on Saturday.

The polling was 59.83 per cent till 5pm on Saturday in Bankura and it reached 83.05 per cent finally. East Midnapore, which is the home turf of leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari — saw the polling percentage shooting up from 67.23 at 5pm to 84.79 at the end. East Midnapore recorded the highest voting percentage among the 22 districts that went to the polls.

Birbhum, a district which had witnessed a high number of uncontested victories in the 2018 panchayat polls, recorded 66.88 per cent polling till 5pm on Saturday. The final percentage is 83.18.

“Fourteen to 15 per cent of these votes — cast after 5pm — are bogus. What can you expect when booths were guarded by civic volunteers and state police constables?” asked state BJP chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya.

However, many officials attached to the poll process said there was nothing wrong with the long polling hours as everything took longer with ballot papers which were used instead of EVMs.

“Voting on ballot papers always takes more time than EVMs. In the case of the rural polls, it takes even more time as a person needs around two to three minutes to exercise their franchise on three ballots. The rise in the polling percentage does not indicate a foul play,” said a senior official.

Trinamul leaders rejected the Opposition allegation.

“Those leaders of the Opposition parties making these claims seem to have come from Mars. It is a known fact that voting takes longer time during rural polls. In many booths, thousands turned up late and that is why the poll process continued late into the night,” said Trinamul state general-secretary Kunal Ghosh.