TRIPURA, MEGHALAYA POLL RESULTS TODAY

The counting of votes for the Assembly elections in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura will be held today.

Agartala/Kohima/Shi llong, March 2: The counting of votes for the Assembly elections in three Northeastern states — Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura — will be held on Saturday amid tight security, officials said.

The BJP has emerged as a strong contender in all the three states and two exit polls have predicted that the party would dethrone the 25year-old Left Front government in Tripura and consolidate its position in the other two states.

While the Congress has been ruling Meghalaya for 10 years, the Naga People’s Front (NFP) has been in power in Nagaland since 2003, except for a three-month period of President's rule in 2008.

Buoyed by the formation of governments in Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, the BJP is making a bid to expand its footprints in the region.

Counting would begin from 8 am in all the states amid tight security, Election Commission officials said.

While Tripura went to the polls on February 18, elections were held in Nagaland and Meghalaya on February 27.

Though the strength of each of the Assemblies in the three states is 60 members, voting was held for 59 constituencies in all of them, for different reasons.

While a CPM candidate died in Tripura, a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate was killed in Meghalaya, which resulted in countermanding of the polls in one seat each in the two states.