More than 85 per cent of Tripura’s 2,035,877 voters exercised their franchise on Saturday, without any major untoward incident.

The State’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) G S G Ayengar said that the turn-out percentage might go up once the reports from all the polling stations reached the headquarters of the respective districts.

“Polling continued till late in the evening in some booths, where there were long queues of voters,” said Mr Ayengar. Over 95 per cent polling was reported from some booths when the latest report poured in.

Both the ruling CPM-led Left Front (LF) and its main challenger Congress expressed satisfaction over the smooth conduct of the polls, despite some stray incidents of minor scuffle between the supporters of rival candidates.
There were altogether 313 candidates, including 23 women, in the fray for the 60 seats of the tiny northeastern State’s Legislative Assembly.

Security in place

The Election Commission (EC) had set up altogether 2391 polling booths across the state and 108 of them had been classified as ‘very vulnerable’ and 500 as ‘vulnerable’. Over 20,000 personnel of the central paramilitary forces were sent to  ensure a free, fair and peaceful poll. In all, over 60000 security personnel were deployed.
The Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said that the voters , specially the women, had turned up in large numbers to cast their votes without any fear, as the Left Front Government had over the past few years contained the militancy to a great extent.

The Union Minister of State Prithviraj Chavan said that the party was happy as the EC had conducted the polling smoothly in a free and fair manner. “We fought the election in a truly democratic manner with a call to the people to go for a regime change for peace and development and we are confident people have responded to our call overwhelmingly,” he said.

The CPM-led Left Front has been ruling the State for the last 15 years without any break.

Ahead of the election, the Congress struck deals with the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT), a regional party espousing the cause of the state’s tribal people and the People’s Democratic Socialist (PDS). The Congress is contesting for 47 seats, while the INPT has put up its candidates in 11 seats. The PDS is contesting for just one seat.

The CPM is contesting for 56 seats, while its two allies — CPI and Revolutionary Socialist Party, have fielded candidates in two constituencies each. Following a spat with the CPM over sharing of seats, the All India Forward Bloc, has quit the alliance and is contesting for 12 seats on its own.

The counting of votes will be held on March 7 next. Mr Ayengar said that adequate security arrangements would be made for counting too.