© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Seventy companies of central armed police forces have been deployed in Tripura to ensure free and fair Lok Sabha elections, Chief Electoral Officer Puneet Agarwal said on Tuesday.
“We have deployed 70 companies central armed police forces to maintain law and order. They are doing area domination, flag marches and patrolling. The security personnel are interacting with common people to dispel any fear to make sure electors can come out freely to cast votes,” Agarwal told reporters.
Agarwal said the polling would be held in the West Tripura and East Tripura constituencies on April 19 and 26, respectively.
A notification will be issued on Wednesday for West Tripura and nominations will be accepted till March 27. The nomination papers will be scrutinised till March 28 and candidates allowed to withdraw them till March 30.
For the East Tripura constituency, a notification will be issued on March 28 and candidates can submit nominations till April 4. The nomination papers will be scrutinised by April 8.
The votes from both constituencies will be counted on June 4 and the entire poll process will be completed by June 6.
Agarwal also said the model code of conduct was in force and that all political parties were warned against use of foul language, unverified allegations or personal attacks during poll campaigns. The ruling party should not misuse government machinery for campaigning, he added.
Agarwal said each candidate would be allowed to spend a maximum of Rs 96 lakh per constituency.
“We have conducted vulnerability assessment through the DEOs, Superintendent of Police, SDPO, police officers in charge etc throughout the state. We will furnish details of vulnerability and deployment later but adequate security arrangements have been made everywhere,” Inspector-General GS Rao said.
The officer also said more security personnel would come to the state for the elections.
There will be 3,350 polling stations (1,686 in West Tripura and 1,664 in East Tripura) across all eight districts, 21 more than during the Assembly elections held last year. These include a new polling station in South Tripura, where Bru migrants were settled as per an agreement between the central government and the governments of Tripura and Mizoram as well as Bru migrants.
“We have included one additional polling station in the Laugang area in South Tripura for Bru voters. Other than this, all other Bru settlements were assigned permanent voting positions,” Agarwal said.
A monitoring system for static surveillance teams, excise, police and other security agencies to furnish real-time data on seizures has been introduced. All polling stations will have CCTV cameras and voting will be live-streamed.
The commission has 6,331 ballot units, 6,615 control units, 6,296 VVPAT units—1.8 times the requirement.
For the Ramnagar Assembly bypoll, also to be held on April 19, 98 electronic voting machines have been kept ready in 49 polling stations.
The 2019 Lok Sabha elections saw a series of complaints of model code of conduct violations and repolling was ordered in a record number of booths.
