Tiny Tripura tops in voter turnout

Polling at some booths went on until 11.15 p.m. under Election Commission8217;s watchful eyes.

Commission officials in Delhi pointed out that while the Birganj assembly constituency witnessed the highest turnout of about 96 per cent, the lowest was in Kanchanpur ST constituency with 86 per cent turnout. The lowest turnout in Kanchanpur is close to the highest turnout of about 87 per cent witnessed during the previous assembly elections in three assembly constituencies in the state.

Based on reports by election observers, the Election Commission officials informed The Indian Express that at the polling station at Srirampur Higher Secondary School in Chandipur assembly constituency, the polling went on till 11.15 p.m. as there were about 500 voters in the queue at the 4 p.m. deadline of election closing there.

As per rules the polling officers there had to issue slips for the waiting voters and got their votes polled, a process recorded videographically. And ditto for a polling booth in Kurti constituency, where people waited in queues at the end of the scheduled closing time.

The fact that the elections were peaceful came as a surprise for even political parties. The state had not witnessed peaceful elections in last two decades.

While the Election Commission had sent in 200 companies of Central police force, as against 134 in the previous election, the five working groups monitoring the election process in Delhi did not receive any complaint.

Satisfied with the poll exercise, Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami said, 8220;The election in Tripura is another example of people8217;s faith in the Election Commission. But, credit also goes to the people in the state who participated in large numbers8221;. This was possible because the Commission attended to every complaint of the people before finalizing electoral rolls, he said.

Deputy Election Commissioner R Balakrishnan credited micro-management of the electoral process for the success of peaceful polling.

8220;Tripura elections also mark a new benchmark in micro-management of the art and science of election management. It is the result of a brick-by-brick and eye-for-details approach adopted by the Commission,8221; said Balakrishnan.

He said the Commission had appointed 60 observers this time as against 18 in the previous elections. The Commission had additionally employed 707 micro-observers for keeping a more focused eye on the polling.

Gopalaswami explained how the Commission had got about 2.7 lakh voters deleted out of the voters list either because they had died or they had permanently shifted. The cleaning up amounted to over 10 per cent of the total over 20 lakh voters in the state.

8220;The electoral rolls cleaning also helped us in getting numerically better results. But, I must say, there were no complaints in the cleaning-up,8221; Gopalaswami said.

Voter turnout

2003: 78.71

1998: 80.84

1993: 81.18

1988: 85.75