india

Updated: Apr 21, 2019 14:59 IST

Three days before the East Tripura constituency, one of the two Lok Sabha seats of the state, is due to go for polls, the opposition parties have demanded that the Election Commission of India (ECI) should conduct polls afresh in the West Tripura constituency.

Polling in West Tripura constituency, as part of the first phase of parliamentary elections was held on April 11. Soon after the polls, both the CPM and Congress raised allegations of massive booth capturing and violence.

According to the CPM, 846 polling booths out of a total of 1679 booths in the West Tripura constituency, was rigged. The party also demanded the deployment of adequate central security forces in each polling booth to ensure peaceful voting.

“A majority of voters could not exercise their franchise on April 11 and the Election Commission of India should take steps to allow them to enjoy their constitutional rights. We demand that the Election Commission issues instructions for re-polling in these booths. Moreover, if the Commission feels the need to conduct re polls in the entire West Tripura constituency, we will surely welcome it,” CPM secretary Goutam Das said.

The CPM also claimed that video footage of CCTV cameras installed in the polling booths on April 11 were scrutinised without their presence on April 12 and 13 and demanded scrutiny should be done in the presence of all political parties.

The Congress too brought similar allegations regarding scrutiny of the video footage and demanded that the ECI should conduct fresh polls in the constituency.

“Our party delegation met deputy Election Commissioner Sudip Jain and said none of our party representatives was present during the video footage’s scrutiny by the chief electoral officer of Tripura. We believe the report sent by the state election authority was submitted to ECI with the intention of suppressing the real fact of mass-rigging. For this, we demand that a fresh poll in the West Tripura constituency should be done,” Congress secretary Rahul Saha said.

Congress chief Pradyot Kishore Deb Burman earlier, said they would move the Supreme Court if the CCTV footage was not made public for scrutiny by all the political parties.

The party also alleged that a section of government officials were involved in the election process to favour the BJP candidate of the East Tripura seat.

Chief Electoral Officer S Taranikanti recently said that they had received 800 complaints related to irregularities by different political parties and other officials in the poll process since April 11 and admitted to notice some ‘irregularities’ after scrutinising the video footage. He also ordered to lodge an FIR against the people who were found involved in booth capturing on day of polls.