Tripura Polls 2023: Central forces help 85-yr-old woman cast vote

TRIPURA: The polling for the Tripura Assembly elections began amid tight security on Thursday. In Tripura's Belonia area, an octogenarian lady went to the polling station to cast her vote.

Central Armed Police Forces personnel (CAPF) helped the 85-year-old woman to enter the polling booth at 37/7 in Saashima High School in South Belonia, Tripura. The voting started at 7 am and will continue till 4 pm.

According to Election Commission, over 28.14 lakh electorates of which 14,15,233 are male voters, 13,99,289 are woman voters and 62 are of the third gender, are eligible to cast their franchise. The voting is underway at 3,337 polling stations. Adequate security arrangements have been made for the polls. The state has 97 all-women-managed police stations. It has 94,815 voters in the 18-19 age group and 6,21,505 in the 22-29 age group. The highest number of voters are in the 40-59 age group at 9,81,089.

The fate of the 259 candidates will be sealed on 60 Assembly seats today. A triangular contest is on the cards as Congress and CPIM, which have been arch rivals for years, stitched a pre-poll alliance to defeat the ruling BJP while the BJP which is looking to retain its power is contesting in alliance with Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) and the Tipra Motha which is being seen as a kingmaker in case of a hung assembly scenario, emerged as an influential regional party floated by the royal scion Pradyot Kishore Debbarma in 2021. Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress has also put up candidates for several seats.

The BJP is contesting on 55 seats and its ally, IPFT, on six seats. But both allies have fielded candidates in the Ampinagar constituency in the Gomati district. The Left will contest 47 and Congress on 13 seats, respectively. Of the total 47 seats, the CPM will contest 43 seats while the Forward Bloc, Communist Party of India ( CPI) and Revolutionary Socialist Party ( RSP) will contest one seat each.

Over 28 lakh voters are eligible to cast their votes in the election for the 60-member assembly in the border state.