Lok Sabha polls: Over 66 percent voting in Tripura East constituency

Agartala: Two-third of the voters on Saturday cast their ballots till afternoon for the second Lok Sabha seat in Left-ruled Tripura, an official said. Around 66 percent voters, the majority of them tribals, cast their ballots till 2 pm Saturday, an election commission official said. “Balloting took place in tribal reserve Tripura East constituency with no untoward incident reported so far. The polling was absolutely peaceful in the parliamentary constituency,” Tripura Chief Electoral Officer Ashutosh Jindal told IANS. On April 7, over 86 percent of the 1.2 million voters cast their votes in the Tripura West constituency. [caption id=“attachment_1477335” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Voters line up in Tripura. PTI[/caption] Dressed in traditional attires 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 districts. Tribals traditionally cast their votes early in a group. The balloting started at 7 am and it will continue till 5 pm, one hour more than the previous elections. “Due to technical snags of EVMs (Electronic Voting Machine) in some polling booths, the voting was delayed for a while, but the engineers either set it right or replaced them within 10 to 15 minutes and the balloting started as usual,” the official said. Of the 1,490 polling stations, six are all women polling stations manned by women polling personnel only. With majority tribals, over 1.13 million voters - half of whom are women - are eligible to exercise their franchise to elect their one Lok Sabha member from among the 12 candidates, including two women. 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 have been deployed to help conduct the polls freely and fairly. Helicopters have been pressed into service to oversee the polling in the Lok Sabha constituency that shares borders with Bangladesh, Assam and Mizoram. In Saturday’s polling, the main battle is between Communist Party of India-Marxist’s Jitendra Choudhury and Sachitra Debbarma of the Congress. Choudhury, 57, is Tripura’s incumbent industry, commerce and rural development minister, while 64-years-old Debbarma is a national award winning teacher. Others in the fray include Parikshit Debbarma (Bharatiya Janata Party), Bhriguram Reang (Trinamool Congress) and Karna Bijoy Jamatia (Aam Aadmi Party). Since 1952, the Left has won the Tripura East seat 10 times while the Congress secured the seat five times. The CPI-M has been winning the seat uninterrupted since 1996. Former Communist chief minister Dasaratha Deb (1993-98) won from the seat four times while CPI-M central committee member Bajuban Reang was elected a record seven times. CPI-M candidates got 62 percent votes in the 2009 polls and 69 percent in the 2004 election while the combined share of votes of all opposition parties, including independents, was 38.31 percent and 31.20 percent, respectively. The ruling CPI-M this time dropped both its sitting members - Khagen Das (Tripura West) and Bajuban Reang (Tripura East). The CPI-M is focusing on the development work it has done in Tripura, while attacking the Congress-led union government for poor governance, price rise and corruption in the country. The opposition is focusing on the Left Front’s alleged misgovernance, unemployment and rising crimes against women. IANS