Tripura recorded 90.58 percent turnout of voters on Monday during the re-polling in six polling stations under six assembly constituencies.
Altogether 5056 voters exercised their franchise during the re-polling. No untoward incident was reported from anywhere in the six polling station areas spread across six assembly constituencies.
On Friday, the Election Commission had ordered re-polling at one booth each in the constituencies of Sonamura, Teliamura, Sabroom, Ampinagar, Kadamtala-Kurti and Dhanpur. Dhanpur is Chief Minister Manik Sarkar’s constituency. The results of the Assembly elections will be declared on March 3.
On Saturday, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju said he was confident of a Bharatiya Janata Party victory in Tripura.
“The BJP is going to form government in Tripura,” he said. “That is the ground report, and our assessment is that we will form the government with absolute majority.”
The ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) blamed the state election department for “failing to conduct a proper election and criminal negligence”. Tripura CPI (M) Secretary Bijan Dhar threatened to act against such “negligence” through “street movements”.
He questioned how the poll monitor had ordered re-polling when no political party had asked for it. Dhar also claimed that the Election Commission had ordered re-polling only in constituencies where the CPI (M) was likely to win.
However, Tripura BJP Spokesperson Ashok Sinha welcomed the Election Commission’s decision to hold re-polling, claiming that some electronic voting machines had malfunctioned.
Tripura CEO Sriram Taranikanti said the Commission has also issued order that during the counting of votes on March 3, the slips of VVPATs (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails) of seven polling stations in seven Assembly constituencies also be counted, since their Presiding Officers did not get clearance from EVM (Electronic Voting Machines) control units for the votes cast during the mandatory mock poll before the start of actual polling on February 18.