After successful conduction of 13th Tripura legislative assembly elections by and large peacefully, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has taken massive arrangement to conduct counting of polled votes in free and fair manner.

Addressing a press conference here at the conference of DM office accompanied by DM(West) Debapriya Bardhan and SP(West) Sankar Debnath along with commandants of CAPFs, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Kiran Gitte said that after peaceful voting, whereas approximate 90% voters of the state cast their votes, the counting of polled votes would be held on March 2nd after a gap of 16 days.

He said a massive security arrangement was made to guard all polled EVMs in strong rooms with three tier security layers and representatives of all political parties are allowed to guard the EVMs.

 All the strong rooms are under twenty four surveillance CCTVs and one TCS officer each will be on duty in the strong rooms for 24- hours on a eight hour schedule basis, said CEO and added that additional and foolproof security measures have been taken for proper preservation and security of strong rooms and there is nothing to fear; the representatives of candidates can also keep watch on what is inside the strong room through CCTV from outside.

He said that on the polling on February 16 last,  the voting had continued till 10.55 PM in the night and there was no violence in front of or around any polling booth and after scrutiny, the ECI directed that there was no need for re-polling anywhere in the state. Above 2 lakh voters cast their votes after 4 PM in 1,682 polling stations across Tripura, said Gitte and added that the highest time of voting takes place at Taibandal polling station under Dhanpur assembly constituency.

Gitte said that all the SDMs have held peace meetings on Saturday with the candidates and with representatives of different political parties and urged them to maintain the peace in their respective areas.

He said that major sections of Central Arms Police Forces (CAPFs) are still in the state and they will be kept in the state to tackle any kind of post-poll violence  and to maintain law and order situation.

All the DMs and SPs of the district are reviewing the law and order situation and administration are also taking strict action, wherever post-poll violence reported, said Gitte and added that so far 16 FIRs has been registered in different parts of the state and altogether 21 miscreants had also arrested involved with violent activities.

Gitte appealed to the people of the state to maintain peace and they should not be involved in any kind of violent activities. He also said that ECI maintains its strong surveillance and will not tolerate any kind of violence. The CEO said that the ‘Mission Zero Poll Violence’ adopted and being implemented by the ECI shall remain in force till March 24.

The DM and SP of West district have also appealed to the people to maintain mutual brotherhood and if the violence is reported again, the administration will again start area domination exercises and will intensify the patrolling.

“I urge upon people not to take law into their own hands, please report to police if there is a complaint; there is sufficient police force in the state to take care of all complaints and grievances pertaining to law and order” said Debapriya Bardhan.