Filing of nominations for Tripura elections begins

THE POLLING FOR THE 60MEMBER ASSEMBLY IS SCHEDULED TO TAKE PLACE ON FEB 18 WHILE THE RESULTS WILL BE DECLARED ON MARCH 3

AGARTALA: The process of nomination for the 60-seat Tripura assembly elections, scheduled to be held on February 18, began on Wednesday, with the Election Commission issuing the notification to this effect.

The last date for the filing of nominations is January 31.

The nomination papers filed by different political parties would be scrutinised on February 1 with the option of withdrawing the nomination by February 3.

Results for the assembly elections would be declared on March 3.

In the state assembly, 20 seats are reserved for Scheduled Tribes and 10 for Scheduled Castes.

While the Left Front declared its first list of candidates on Tuesday, both the BJP and Congress were yet to do so.

The BJP, which has entered into an alliance with the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), is expected to declare its candidates by this week.

The Congress is learnt to have finalised its candidates during a meeting held i n Guwahati Wednesday evening. The party has chosen to form a ‘grand alliance’ with Trinamool Congress and three other indigeneous parties — Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT) and National Conference of Tripura (NCT).

There are a total of 25, 69,216 registered electorates, with 11 people from third gender, who will be expected to exercise their franchise at 3,214 polling booths. The number of female voters is 12, 65,785. Polling will take place from 7am to 5pm.

More than 4,000 VVPATS and 3,214 EVMS would be used.

The present assembly is ruled by CPI(M) with 49 seats, followed by Congress’s 10 while the remaining seat is held by CPI.