Voting for byelection to 14-Badharghat Assembly constituency in Tripura which started at 7am on Monday ended peacefully at 5pm with 79.29 per cent voter turnout.
The bypoll in the constituency, the state’s largest with over 50,000 voters, was held following the death of ruling BJP legislator Dilip Sarkar in April.
Speaking to this correspondent on Monday, returning officer Tarun Debbarma said: “Polling started at 7am and concluded at 5pm. Till 1pm, the turnout was 52.35 per cent. It was 79.29 per cent till 5pm. Due to minor faults in some EVMs, in some places polling started 10 to 15 minutes late. The turnout is likely to increase in the final computation.”
Altogether 45,918 people out of 57,908 voters cast their votes in 71 polling booths of the Assembly constituency.
The BJP has fielded Mimi Majumder for the seat while Bulti Biswas is the CPM candidate. The Congress has put up Ratan Das as its candidate.
The Opposition political parties in the state said they were “happy” with the role of the state election commissioner so far.
Secretary of the CPM’s West Tripura committee, Pabitra Kar, alleged that goons of the ruling BJP had threatened people not to cast their votes and roughed up two polling agents of the CPM in the afternoon.
“The BJP-backed goons tried to intimidate voters. A total of 21 polling agents were forced to leave the booths by the BJP and two of them were beaten up. We have informed the Election Commission and they will take necessary action. However, we are hoping that the CPM will win,” Kar said. Addressing a news conference in the evening, senior PCC leader Subal Bhowmik said: “The ruling BJP threatened the voters on Sunday. They did the same on Monday with the help of MLAs of the ruling party from other Assembly constituencies. However, braving their threats, people cast their votes. So far, we are happy with the role of the Election Commission and we are confident that the Congress will win the seat.”
Additional inspector-general (law and order), Subrata Chakraborty, said no major untoward incident took place during polling hours.
BJP spokesperson Ashok Sinha said the election was peaceful and people were in a festive mood.
