The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Tripura congratulated the people of the state for completing the assembly elections in a peaceful manner with high turnout.

Addressing a press conference here at the conference hall of DM(West) on Thursday evening CEO Kiran Gitte accompanied by state police nodal officer G S Rao said that voting till 4 PM recorded 81.10 %, but after 4 PM voting still going on in approximately 1650 polling booths across eight districts of the state.

He said that the polling percentage in Thursday’s assembly elections would be around 92% after counting polling percentages of all remaining booths , where voting still continues up to night 10 PM.

He said that voter turnout was 91.82 per cent and 89.38 per cent in 2013 and 2018 Assembly elections, respectively

The CEO said that when the voting officially ended at 4 PM in the afternoon, about 10 % of voters were in the queue in 1650 polling booths of a total 3,337 polling booths across the state.

He said that the long queues of voters were seen since early morning of Thursday and seeing the long queues of voters at almost every polling station, the ECI hoped that Tripura may today record high turnout of voting.

“As we expected that a high turnout as per the tradition of Tripura voters, the final turnout could reach near about to 90%,” said Gitte and added that as the per challenge and motto of Election of Commission of India (ECI) , the ‘zero poll violence’, all political parties, their supporters and all voters of the state maintain the spirit of ECI and completed the polling process peacefully, barring some stray incident of violence.

 “Over 81.1 per cent of the 28.14 lakh voters exercised their franchise when the polling officially ended at 4 PM in the afternoon. Over 2.2% people, mostly polling and security personnel, cast their votes through postal ballot before Thursday’s voting,” said Gitte.

Speaking in the press meet, state police nodal officer GS Rao said that except for six incidents, the voting across the state was 100 per cent peaceful. He said so far 5 FIRs were registered and 6 accused persons were also arrested.

Rao said that investigation is going on in many complaints along with 5 FIRs including reports of obstruction to voters, EVMs malfunctioning and intimidations to voters.

While, Gitte also said that it is a matter of satisfaction that in all polling stations, more than one polling agents of candidates were present, webcasting done, Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) and micro observers were present in all the polling stations.