A multi-cornered contest will be witnessed in the Tripura East Lok Sabha seat, which goes to polls in the second phase of the 7-phase parliamentary elections on Friday.

All arrangements have been made for Friday's polling for the Tripura East Lok Sabha seat in which nine candidates are in the fray, a senior election official said.

He said that around 14 lakh electorates, including 6.93 lakh female voters, are eligible to cast their votes in 1664 polling stations in different districts. Of the 1664 polling stations, 13 would be model polling stations with all basic facilities for the voters and 12 would be all women managed polling stations.

According to election officials, a large contingent of Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) and state forces, including Tripura State Rifles (TSR) have been deployed to prevent any untoward incident in the elections to the tribal reserve parliamentary constituency.  Though there are nine candidates, including two women, contesting in the Lok Sabha seat, the main electoral battle is expected to be held between ruling BJP and the opposition CPI(M).

The BJP has fielded Kriti Devi Debbarman, elder sister of Tipra Motha chief Pradyot Kishore Debbarma, against CPI(M)’s Rajendra Reang, a former MLA. Reang is the consensus nominee of the opposition INDIA bloc, comprising Congress, Left and other parties.  

In the last parliamentary election in 2019, the Tripura East Lok Sabha seat was owned by BJP’s Rebati Tripura and this time the saffron party dropped him.

Security has also been tightened along the India-Bangladesh international border and strict vigil has been kept in all the bordering villages to avoid any cross-border incident and unauthorized movement.