East Tripura: Over 11,000 electors cast votes through special procedures

AGARTALA: More than 11,000 voters enrolled in the electoral rolls of the East Tripura parliamentary constituency have exercised their franchise through various special voting procedures ahead of the poll day, a senior official said.

They are among the 13.96 lakh eligible voters who are supposed to cast their votes in the second phase of the general elections to Lok Sabha scheduled on April 26. The vocal campaign for the politically crucial ST reserved constituency came to an end on Wednesday, Chief Electoral Officer Puneet Agarwal informed.

Sharing details of the poll preparedness, Agarwal said, "On 17 and 18 home voting for the Persons with disabilities and 85 plus voters was conducted. In this process, 4,515 voters have cast their valuable votes. Apart from that, 165 people voted under the essential services category and 6,379 voters cast their votes through postal ballots. In all of these cases, more than 94 per cent casting is achieved."

"As far as the service voters are concerned who are employed with armed forces, 353 votes have been received by post. The total ballots issued under this category stand at 4,682. The rest of the ballots would be received through postal services till the date of counting. Only those many such votes would be judged valid that are received before 8 am on the day of counting," he added.

The total number of eligible voters in the East Tripura parliamentary constituency stands at 13 lakh 96 thousand 761.

On the newly enrolled Bru voters who will be exercising their voting rights for the second time in Tripura, Agarwal said, "The total number of Bru voters in the state stands at 17,524. A total of 16,300 voters will cast their votes in the second phase while the others already voted in the first phase."

The number of polling stations for the East Tripura is 1,664. As many as 444 stations among them are considered to be sensitive and critical. "Besides, an adequate number of central armed forces would be deployed in the polling stations. Section 144 was already promulgated and liquor shops shall remain closed all over the state for two days to make sure that the polls could be conducted without any hassle," added the CEO.

Speaking on the complaints, Agarwal said, "As many as 85 complaints were received so far out of which 79 complaints have been disposed of and inquiry is underway for six. If we take East Tripura in specific, a total of 18 complaints were received out of which 14 have been resolved already and four complaints are being looked into by the concerned officials."

The Chief Electoral Officer also clarified that confusion was created regarding more than 100 per cent voting in certain polling stations.

"In some polling stations, more than 100 per cent polling was recorded during the first phase of polls. It has happened because of the EDC voters. Election Duty Certificates were issued to a significant number of officials. They were enabled to cast their votes in any of the polling stations out of their constituency. The polling stations where more than 100 per cent polling is recorded were located close to the SDM offices where reserved polling personnel were kept on waiting. This is why they have voted in those polling stations out of their free will," he said.

It is also worthy to be noted here that the vocal campaign for East Tripura comes to an end on Wednesday. The elections for the high profile seat is slated to take place on April 26.

The first phase of Lok Sabha polls took place on April 19 and the remaining 6 phases of the elections will continue on different dates till June 1 to elect the 543 members of the 18th Lok Sabha. The results will be announced on June 4.