Multi-cornered contest in East Tripura LS polls in 2nd phase on Friday

A multi-cornered contest will be witnessed in the Tripura East Lok Sabha seat, which goes to polls in the second phase of the 7-phase parliamentary elections on Friday.

All arrangements have been made for Friday's polling for the Tripura East Lok Sabha seat in which nine candidates are in the fray.

With assurance of ‘zero poll violence’, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on the poll day delivered sufficient equipment and accessories of all polling staff with adequate training to tackle any kind of technical glitch in EVMs.

Giving details Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Tripura, Puneet Agarwal said a total electorate of 13,96,761 will cast their votes in 1,664 polling booths across 30 assembly constituencies and all polling stations will be covered with web-casting and videography.  Among the total polling booths, 158 in urban areas, 1506 in rural areas with 1365 polling locations.

He said that many polling stations will be managed exclusively by women poll personnel with women central forces while there will be model polling stations; besides there will be few more polling stations for casting votes by persons with disability (PWD) including 13 would be model polling stations with all basic facilities for the voters and 12 would be all women managed polling stations.

This time, altogether 16,260 Bru voters will cast their votes from 17 polling stations spreading in Dhalai, North and Gomati districts of Tripura under East Tripura PC, said Agarwal.

He urged the voters of the Lok Sabha seat to cast their vote without any fear and the Commission has made sufficient arrangements in every polling station for voters to get rid of hot and humid weather.

A large contingent of Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) and state forces, including Tripura State Rifles (TSR) have been deployed to prevent any untoward incident in the elections to the tribal reserve parliamentary constituency.  Though there are nine candidates, including two women, contesting in the Lok Sabha seat, the main electoral battle is expected to be held between ruling BJP and the opposition CPI(M).

The BJP has fielded Kriti Singh Debbarma, elder sister of Tipra Motha chief Pradyot Kishore Debbarma, against CPI(M)’s Rajendra Reang, a former MLA. Reang is the consensus nominee of the opposition INDIA Bloc, comprising Congress, Left and other parties.

In the last parliamentary election in 2019, the Tripura East Lok Sabha seat was held by BJP’s Rebati Tripura and this time the saffron party dropped him.

Security has also been tightened along the India-Bangladesh international border and strict vigil has been kept in all the bordering villages to avoid any cross-border incident and unauthorized movement.