Peaceful ballotting in Tripura assembly by-poll

Voting for the by-election to the Manu assembly seat in southern Tripura began Saturday morning on a peaceful note with a quarter of the votes being cast in the first two hours, an official said.

Voters were seen queuing up to exercise their franchise in most of the 46 polling stations after the balloting started at 7 a.m., election officials said, adding that there was no reports of any untoward incident so far.

"Polling is under way in 46 polling stations in 38 locations. Central paramilitary forces and Tripura State Rifles troopers have been deployed adequately to hold the by-poll smoothly," poll Returning Officer Rajib Datta told IANS over phone from Sabroom, 135 km south of here.

Chief Electoral Officer Ashutosh Jindal told IANS here that 38,843 voters, including 18,929 female electorates, are eligible to cast their votes to choose their representative from among the six candidates.

Jindal said that two observers, 38 micro-observers and 230 polling personnel were appointed to hold the by-poll.

Counting of ballots for the assembly seat, reserved for the tribals, will be held Sep 16.

The by-poll was necessitated after former forest and rural development minister Jitendra Chaudhary, who won the Manu seat five times on the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist ticket, was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Tripura East constituency.