The West Bengal bypolls are underway, with voting taking place for four assembly seats - Maniktala, Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagdah, and Raiganj. The voting process has been marked by a scuffle between Trinamool Congress (TMC) party workers and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Manas Kumar Ghosh for the Raiganj assembly seat. Krishna Kalyani is the TMC candidate for the Raiganj assembly seat, where the by-election is being held. Voting began at 7 AM and will continue until 6 PM.

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There are around 10 lakh voters across the four assembly segments. The Election Commission has deployed around 70 companies of security forces to secure 1,097 polling booths spread across these four seats. The counting will take place on July 13.

Earlier, the BJP candidate for the Raiganj seat, hit out at the Trinamool Congress for fielding Krishna Kalyani from the Raiganj constituency, saying that the ruling party wants to "feed expired medicine" to people.

"The people of Raiganj have given their mandate to a person to be their MLA from 2021 to 2026, but to get to newer heights, that person fought Lok Sabha elections, the people of Raiganj have rejected that person. The person who was rejected by the people of Raiganj, the TMC wants 'to feed an expired medicine' to the people. The people of Raiganj won't accept that person again...," Ghosh said told ANI.

In the 2021 Assembly elections, Krishna Kalyani contested as the BJP candidate from Raiganj and emerged victorious, defeating Kanaiyalal Agarwal of TMC with a margin of 20,748 votes. A few months after his win, Kalyani joined the TMC. In the 2024 Parliamentary elections, TMC nominated him as their candidate for the Raiganj seat. He had to resign from his post as MLA to run for the Parliamentary seat as the TMC candidate. However, he was defeated by Kartick Chandra Paul with a margin of 68,197 votes.