This Article is From Feb 19, 2018

Tripura Poll Turnout 78.86%, Below Last Time's 91.82%: 10 Points

The Tripura election will decide the electoral fortunes of four-time Chief Minister Manik Sarkar

Tripura assembly election: The state has 26 lakh voters, about half of them are women

Highlights

  • Voting in 59 of 60-seat assembly is being held till 4 pm
  • 26 lakh voters will cast their votes including 11 third gender voters
  • 292 candidates, including 23 women, will contest the election in Tripura
Agartala: The assembly elections in Tripura, where the Left is trying to win a sixth term against the BJP challenge, saw 78.86 per cent voter turnout, till last reports came in. The figure is lower than the 91.82 per cent of the 2013 elections. Voting continued till late in the evening as Electronic Voting machines developing glitches in some areas. Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, under whose leadership the CPM won 50 of the 60 seats in the last assembly polls, had led the Left's poll campaign. The BJP, which is yet to win a seat, has tied up with the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura.

Here is your 10-point cheatsheet:

  1. Polling continued in several constituencies where Electronic Voting Machines and Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail machines developed glitches.

  2. The Election Commission said 89 EVMs and 191 voter-verified paper audit trail machines were replaced and many of the complaints were found to be false.

  3. Altogether 292 candidates, including 23 women, were in fray for 59 of the state's 60 seats that went to polls on Sunday.

  4. As people across Tripura trickled into polling booths since 7 am, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked "sisters and brothers of Tripura, particularly young voters, to turnout in record numbers and cast their vote in the assembly elections."

  5. Chief Minister Manik Sarkar was the face of the Left campaign, covering all the constituencies in the state, including the 20 reserved seats for tribals, 19 of which were won by his party last time.

  6. PM Modi led the BJP's election campaign in the state, along with some of the most prominent members of his cabinet and state leaders. Union minister Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh, BJP chief Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had pitched in with the campaign from time to time.

  7. The Congress, which won 10 seats last time, is going it alone. Party chief Rahul Gandhi had led the campaign in Tripura after several of its top state leaders join the BJP last year.

  8. The CPM fielded candidates on 57 seats, leaving one each for its allies. The BJP contested 51 seats, leaving 9 for the IPFT. The Congress is contesting in all but one seat.

  9. Election in Charilam, which was postponed after the death of CPM candidate Ramendra Narayan Debbarma, will be held on March 12.

  10. Elections will be held in Meghalaya and Mizoram on February 27. Results for all three northeastern states will be declared on March 3.



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