25% voting recorded in Tripura LS polls

Around 25 per cent voting was recorded in the first three hours of polling on Thursday for the West Tripura parliamentary constituency in Tripura, election and police officials said.

Police spokesman Subrata Chakraborty said that in 10 places, some persons tried to prevent voters from voting but were thwarted.

"No major incident was reported from anywhere," Chakraborty told IANS.

Election Commission officials said that in some polling stations, voting was temporarily halted due to the malfunctioning of either the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) or the Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines.

The voting for the Tripura West parliamentary constituency began amidst heavy security at 7 a.m. and will end at 5 p.m.

A total of 13,47,381 electorate, including 6,65,322 women, are eligible to exercise their franchise to decide the electoral fate of 13 candidates.

A total of 1,679 polling stations, including 30 to be managed by only women polling officials and security personnel, have been set up.

The main contest is between BJP candidate Pratima Bhoumik, 50, Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front candidate Sankar Prasad Datta, 61, and Subal Bhowmik, 58, who quit the BJP's Vice-President's post and became the Congress aspirant last month.

--IANS

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