Tripura TTAADC polls: Counting underway amid tight security

Agartala: The counting of votes for the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) elections started at 8 am and is currently underway amid tight security arrangements across 16 sub-divisional magistrate offices here on Saturday.

The elections to the TTAADC were held on Tuesday across 1,244 polling stations for the 28 elected seats of the 30-member autonomous district council.

The Tripura police have made adequate security arrangements and no one other than the counting agents and the staff are allowed to enter the counting centres.

Speaking with reporters, State Election Commission (SEC) secretary, Prasenjit Bhattacharjee said that the counting of votes started on time and is underway across all counting halls.

“We are yet to receive any clear report on counting as the Returning Officers are still sending the inputs from all the constituencies. There is no report of violence so far from any part of the state,” Bhattacharjee said.

The TTAADC election was mainly contested between opposition CPIM, which was in power in the ADC for the last four terms, the ruling BJP-IPFT alliance which is now in power and the Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (TIPRA) — a new alliance of most indigenous parties of Tripura headed by royal scion Pradyot Kishore Manikya Deb Barman.

The election was contested among 157 candidates including 14 from BJP, 17 from IPFT candidates, 28 from the Left Front, 28 from the Congress, four from the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT), 30 from other political parties and 38 independent candidates.

A total of 8,65,041 voters were eligible to exercise their franchise including 4,36,548 males, 4,28,490 females and three voters from other genders. The polls held on April 6 reported a turnout of 85.14 per cent amid scattered violence in some places.

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