Kolkata: The five-phase Assembly elections in West Bengal that started on April 17 will end on Monday, with the holding of the final round of polling in 49 constituencies spread across the six districts of north Bengal. More than 8.1 million voters will decide the fate of 306 candidates, including seven Ministers.

Elections will be held in Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Uttar and Dakshin Dinajpur and Malda districts.

Elections have so far been held in 244 constituencies out of 294.

Polling in one constituency was countermanded following the death of a candidate.

Police said a block divisional officer of Kumarganj in Dakshin Dinajpur district has been reported missing since Saturday night.

Increased vigil

Nearly 500 companies of Central paramilitary forces will be deployed on the day of polling, said the State's Chief Electoral Officer Debashis Sen.

There is increased vigil along the region's international borders with Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

Deputy Election Commissioner Anand Kumar discussed the security arrangements with election observers, the police and Border Security Force officials at a meeting in Cooch Behar during the day.

In fenced-off stretches along the India-Bangladesh border, the gates will be kept open from 6 a.m. to enable Indian residents who live on the other side to cross over and cast votes, said a district official in Cooch Behar.

While the polls in the plains of north Bengal will determine whether the Left Front is able to maintain its supremacy, a keen contest is on the cards in the hills of Darjeeling, where the Gorkha National Liberation Front has been a major political force ever since it led the movement for a separate Gorkhaland in the mid-1980s.

Biman Bose, chairman of the Left Front Committee and secretary of the State Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), alleged that miscreants set ablaze a jeep in the Habibpur area of Malda on Saturday night in which workers of his party were travelling.

Four of those in the vehicle were injured and the condition of one was serious.

He also said that "fundamentalist forces" were active in certain parts of the State and were out to foment unrest.

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