A woman checks the temperature of a voter before he casts his vote at a polling booth during the first phase of the West Bengal state election in Purulia district, India, March 27, 2021. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri
KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - Voters in India's Assam and West Bengal cast their ballots on Saturday in elections that will indicate how Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's support is holding up after a year of the coronavirus pandemic and months of protests against his farm reforms.
Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah campaigned energetically for their Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in West Bengal, encouraging defections from the Trinamool Congress (TMC) party, whose firebrand leader Mamata Banerjee has been chief minister since 2011.
