The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday announced polling schedules for the Assembly elections in Tripura and two other Northeastern states Nagaland and Meghalaya.

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar addressing a press conference at New Delhi on Wednesday afternoon said that polling will be held in Tripura on February 16 and in Nagaland and Meghalaya on February 27 and the counting of votes is scheduled for March 2. All the three states have 60-member Assemblies.

While, soon after announcement of poll schedules by ECI, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Tripura Kiran Gitte addressing a press conference at Civil secretariat in the evening said that the Gazette notification for the 13th assembly elections for Tripura legislative assembly will be issued on January 21 and along with the announcement of the election schedule, the model code of conduct (MCC) for political parties and candidates will also come into force from Wednesday.

He said that the last date for filing nominations has been kept on January 30 and scrutiny of the nomination to be held on January 31st and last date for the withdrawal of candidatures is February 2nd. Gitte said that the entire election process shall be completed on March 4th before the end of assembly term on March 22, 2023.

Giving details of some election statistics, Gitte said that as per the final electoral rolls, altogether 28,13,478 voters will cast their votes in 60 assembly constituencies across 3,328 polling stations. He said that all polling stations will have deployment of Central Arms Police Forces (CAPFs) and all booths except 72 booths will have webcasting and in 72 booths, the entire polling process will be covered through off-line videography.

All 80 plus and PWD voters can cast their votes from their respective houses and general voters can register their grievance through C-Vigil app, said Gitte and added that ECI has also introduced many apps for voters and political parties.

He said that the state at present has about 50% more EVMs in comparison to 3,328 booths and also 30% more polling staff.

Gitte said that this time ECI will deploy six kinds of election observers including general and counting observers. This is for the first time every booth will have micro-observers, said CEO and added that the silent period for the campaign has been fixed from night 10 PM to morning 6 AM every day.

He assured voters of the state that a sufficient number of CAPFs will be deployed across the state and ECI has been taking all measures to ensure free and fair elections.

Gitte said that on Wednesday’s political violence held in Briddhinagar area under 10-Majlishpur assembly constituency among supporters of BJP and Congress, the administration will take strong action against accused persons and ECI will take all steps to ensure zero-poll violence.