CPM, Congress Seek Fresh Polls for Tripura West Lok Sabha Seat; Cite Violence and Booth Capturing Incidents

Agartala, April 21: With allegations of massive booth capturing and violence during the first phase of Lok Sabha Elections 2019, opposition parties have demanded that the Election Commission of India (ECI) should conduct polls afresh in the Tripura West constituency in the third phase, along with the Tripura East seat.

Both the Communist Party of India and Congress have demanded that the polls in Tripura West should be conducted afresh as reports of violence and booth capturing were observed in some place. Alleging that 846 polling booths out of a total of 1679 booths in the West Tripura constituency were rigged, CPM had demanded adequate central security forces' deployment in each polling booth to ensure peaceful voting. West Bengal Poll Violence: BJP Candidates' Office, House Ransacked by Alleged 'TMC Goons'. 

CPM secretary Goutam Das said, as reported by Hindustan Times, "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."

Even Congress sought similar demands and alleged that scrutiny of the video footage be done. It also sought ECI should conduct fresh polls in the constituency. Congress secretary Rahul Saha said, "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."

Along with this, Congress state chief Pradyot Kishore Deb Burman said that they would move the Supreme Court if the CCTV footage was not made public for scrutiny by all the political parties. The Congress also alleged that government officials were involved in the election process to favour the BJP candidate of the East Tripura seat.

Earlier, Chief Electoral Officer S Taranikanti had 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. Taranikanti also ordered to lodge an FIR against the people who were found involved in booth capturing on day of polls.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 21, 2019 05:38 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).