Agartala: With West Tripura constituency going to poll on Thursday, the director general of police, Akhil Kumar Shukla, on Wednesday said that the police have taken adequate measures to ensure free-and-fair elections in the state.
Addressing the press conference, Shukla said that the Central Armed Paramilitary Forces (CAPF) have been deployed across the state and in areas falling under critical and vulnerable polling stations, there will be more movement of mobile patrolling.
He said, “All the 125 sensitive clusters will also have about 166 police mobile unit deployment along with 142 numbers of nakkas (barricade) to ensure that people from one place do not move unnecessarily to the other area.”
“About 198 police sector officers and 198 civil sector officers will be continuously moving around to keep an eye and see if any voters is having problem in reaching his or her polling station,” he added.
The district headquarters and each police station will have reserve police personnel, ready to be deployed at any place whenever required or if any emergency situation arises.
The international borders, which the state shares from three sides, will also be sealed and no illegal movements will be allowed across the state. The interstate borders will also be sealed except for the Bru refugees who would be travelling from the state to Kanhmun district of Mizoram on Thursday to cast their votes in the first phase of Lok Sabha elections on April 11.
He also appealed to the citizens of the state to not believe in any kind of rumours and dial 100 or toll-free number 15103 on the voting day.
On the other hand, chief electoral officer Sriram Taranikanti said that all the polling stations will have micro observers and there will be 100% webcasting. Tripura is the only state in the country to have such an arrangement.
Further, the CEO said that all the polling stations have been mapped to keep a note of every person involved in a polling station, starting from the sector civil officer, sector police officer, SDPO, police station in-charge, and ARO. The list will be provided to all the respective police stations, CAPF and the commandants of the TSR battalions.
“The movements of the sector officers and the sector officers will also be tracked through a mobile application to keep the movement recorded,” Taranikanti added.
All required measures are also being taken to deal with the weather conditions. There will be three queues where after every two women and two PWD voters one man will be allowed to vote, said the CEO.
All the polling staff will reach their polling stations on Thursday and once they reach the spot, a message will be sent to the commission from every single polling station, he added.
A total number of 13,47,381 electors will exercise their franchise to elect a member of Parliament from 13 candidates of different political parties in the fray for the West Tripura Parliamentary constituency.
The CEO also informed that the East Tripura candidates can continue with the campaigns in their constituencies without violating the Model Code of Conduct.
