Peaceful voting in Tripura tribal area
agartala — Around 940,000 people voted on Saturday for the second Lok Sabha seat in Left-ruled Tripura, an official said.
“Balloting took place in tribal reserve Tripura East constituency with no untoward incidents reported so far. The polling was absolutely peaceful in the parliamentary constituency,” Tripura Chief Electoral Officer Ashutosh Jindal said.
The constituency has an electorate of 1.13 million, the majority of them tribals. In the last Lok Sabha polls in 2009, around 83 percent votes were polled for the parliamentary seat.
On April 7, over 86 per cent of the 1.2 million voters cast their votes in the Tripura West constituency.
Dressed in traditional attire, long queues of men and women voters, including tribals, were seen in most of the 1,490 polling stations.
“In spite of summer heat, voters, including women, in large numbers came to the polling booths even before the polling started at 7 a.m.,” said Jindal quoting reports from the districts.
“The voting percentage might increase after getting the final reports from the returning officer and district magistrates and collectors. Many voters are still at the polling stations even beyond 5 p.m. to cast their votes,” an official added.
The balloting started at 7am and ended at 5pm, one hour more than the previous elections.
Of the 1,490 polling stations, six are all women polling stations manned by women polling personnel only.
Over 12,000 troopers of Manipur State Rifles, Central Reserve Police Force, Assam Rifles and Border Security Force personnel besides the state’s security forces were deployed for free and fair conduct of the polls. —