Over 79 per cent of the total 12.5 lakh voters on Tuesday cast their
votes in the deferred polling for the Tripura East parliamentary
constituency.
“After the final reports from all the polling
stations received, the polling percentage might touch 80 per cent. In
2014, the voting percentage in the Tripura East parliamentary seat was
around 85 per cent,” an Election official said.
The officials said
that in around 100 polling stations, voting was temporarily halted due
to the snags of either the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) or the
Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines.
Voting began
amidst unprecedented security at 7 a.m. and formally ended at 5 p.m. A
total of 1,257,944 people, including 620,291 women, were eligible to
exercise their franchise in 1,645 polling stations, including 31 all
women ones, to decide the fate of 10 candidates, including two women.
“Braving
soaring summer temperature, men and women including the young and first
time voters exercised their franchise amidst huge number of
paramilitary troopers guarding the balloting areas,” returning officer
Vikas Singh said
Singh said that in view of the heat, they had arranged temporary sheds and drinking water for voters.
Tripura
Police PRO Subrata Chakraborty said that no untoward incident was
reported from anywhere in the mountainous tribal reserve constituency
spread across six districts.
Another senior police official said
that few people were arrested in Amarpur areas in southern Tripura for
intimidating voters and plying bikes violating the election rules.
The
main contest is expected between the CPI-M sitting MP Jitendra
Choudhury, ruling BJP’s Rebati Tripura and Maharaj Kumari Pragya Deb
Barman of the Congress.
A record number of around 10,000 central
paramilitary force, Tripura State Rifles troopers and state police
personnel have been deployed in the constituency, bordering Bangladesh,
Assam and Mizoram.
Citing a “non-conducive security situation”,
the poll panel last week had deferred voting for the seat from April 18
to April 23.
