Tripura panchayat polls: Over 80 pc turnout recorded amid stray incidents of violence (Ld)

Agartala, Aug 8 (IANS) Over 80 per cent of around 13 lakh voters exercised their franchise during the three-tier panchayat elections in Tripura on Thursday amid reports of stray incidents of violence coming in from a few districts, officials said.According to State Election Commission (SEC) officials, the ruling BJP earlier won 4,806 (70 per cent) of the 6,909 seats unopposed in the gram panchayats, panchayat samitis, and zilla parishads.The SEC officials said there were no major incidents of violence, except for a few cases, adding that the voting was by and large peaceful in all the eight districts of the state.A police officer said that some incidents of intimidation, attacks on polling agents, and allegations of wrongdoings were reported from Sepahijala, Gomati Khowai, and South Tripura districts which were quickly handled by the police.State Election Commissioner (SEC) Saradindu Chaudhuri said that to hold the elections peacefully, over 10,000 state security forces, including Tripura State Rifles (TSR) personnel, and around 2,200 Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) personnel were deployed.Amid opposition parties’ allegations of pre-poll violence, intimidation, and attacks, the BJP candidates already emerged victorious without any contest in 4,551 (71.44 per cent) of the 6,370 gram panchayat seats, 235 (55.55 per cent) of the 423 panchayat samiti seats, and 20 (17 per cent) of the 116 zilla parishad seats.On Thursday, elections were held in 1,819 seats in 606 gram panchayats, 188 seats in 35 panchayat samitis, and 96 seats in eight zilla parishads.In all, 4,761 candidates representing different political parties are contesting the elections in eight districts, excluding the areas under the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC).There are 6,370 seats in 606 gram panchayats, 423 seats in 35 panchayat samitis, and 116 seats in eight zilla parishads, with 33 per cent reservation for women.The Tripura High Court on July 18 directed the SEC to conduct free and fair gram panchayats elections.The high court passed the orders after the opposition Congress and the CPI (M) earlier filed separate petitions before the court seeking its directions to the SEC to conduct the panchayats elections freely and fairly after a large number of violent incidents took place across the state when the candidates of the opposition parties tried to submit their nominations.The votes will be counted on August 12.–IANSsc/arm