The first of the two-phase Assam the six-phase West Bengal assembly elections began at 7 am today amid strict security.

In Assam, 65 of the state's total 126 constituencies are going to polls in which the main contenders are the ruling Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party-Asom Gana Parishad-Bodoland People's Front alliance.

An electorate of 95,11,732, including 45,95,712 women, are able to exercise their franchise in 12,190 polling booths to decide the fate of 539 candidates.

As many as 1,241 polling stations have been identified as 'critical' polling stations, 1,992 as 'hypersensitive' and 3,739 as 'sensitive'.

In all 535 companies of security forces have been deployed in the 65 constituencies.

Out of them 433 companies are central forces and 102 are from the state police.   In WB, 18 constituencies in the Left-wing extremism-affected areas are going to polls today.

A tight multi-layered security ring was thrown in the three districts of West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura to tackle any threat by Maoists.

Phase 1(a) of the election will decide the fate of 133 candidates, including 11 women, fighting from the 18 constituencies.

Out of them, 13 seats have been roughly classified as LWE-affected areas by the Election Commission where voting will end early at 4 pm due to security considerations.

In the remaining five constituencies of Purulia, Manbazar, Kashipur, Para and Raghunathpur voting will go on for two extra hours till 6 pm.

Total number of voters in the constituencies are a little over 40 lakh out of which 20,47,202 are males.

The third gender category list shows only a handful of 16 voters.

There are total 4,945 polling stations out of which 1,962 have been classified as critical ones by the Election Commission.