Conducive Atmosphere in Tripura for Lok Sabha Polls: CEO

Guwahati: Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Tripura, Sriram Taranikanti on Sunday said that the state has a perfectly conducive atmosphere to hold the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

The CEO has commented on the election atmosphere in the state amid allegations of large scale pre-poll violence levelled by the opposition CPI (M) saying that the democracy has been murdered in Tripura.

The CEO further stated that he was hopeful of conducting a peaceful, free and fair general election in the state of Tripura. Taranikanti, while commenting on the security issue said that the adequate central security forces would be deployed in Tripura. He said that some central paramilitary personnel have already arrived and additional forces would arrive soon. The military forces will be deployed in confidence-building measures like patrolling, area domination etc. based on vulnerability and criticality of polling stations.

Taranikanti further added that they would deploy flying squads, static surveillance teams, video surveillance teams to ensure observance of Model Code of Conduct and election observers will also visit the state.

On the other hand, CPI (M) state secretary, Goutam Das said in February last that democracy is almost over in Tripura as over 1500 persons allegedly came under attack in incidents of poll violence in the last few months in the state. He further claimed that there is no conducive atmosphere in the state for holding the Parliament elections.

Reacting to Das's comments, CEO Taranikanti said that some complaints on poll-related issues were lodged in each of the eight districts of the state and most of these complaints have been resolved.

Tripura Rajya Sabha MP Jharna Das Baidya in a complaint to the CEO said that her husband and police officer Kaushik Baidya was injured which she claimed to be a political attack. Commenting on the issue, the CEO said that the Director General of Police of Tripura Akhil Kumar Shukla has ensured necessary steps being taken in the direction.

As per the election officials, over 30,000 applications were submitted to the state electoral authority for additions, deletion and correction of रnames of voters till date and 90 percent of the applications have already been processed including 5,700 deletions.

The Tripura polls will be held in two phases- April 11 and April 18.

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