Civic by-polls on to fill up 67 vacant ULB seats in Tripura

The by-elections for the vacant seats in nine municipal bodies of Tripura, including Agartala Municipal Corporation, is underway with over 30 per cent voter turnout recorded during the first four hours of polling on Thursday, officials said.

The by-elections are being held to elect representatives of four wards of Agartala Municipal Corporation (AMC) and 63 wards in eight other municipal councils in the state, the officials said.

"An average of 31.69 percent voting was recorded by the respective returning officers till 11 am and polling process remained peaceful with no reports of any untoward incident," the Secretary of the State Election Commission, Prashanta Bhattacharjee, said.

Adequate number of security personnel were deployed to ensure free, fair and peaceful by-elections, he said. Altogether 174 candidates of different political parties are in the fray and as many as 104 polling stations have been opened for conducting the by-elections.

The counting of votes is scheduled to be held Friday.

The by-elections were declared for 179 Wards of the AMC and the Municipal Councils but the ruling BJP has already won 112 Wards of civic bodies unopposed.

The by-polls are being held as the seats fell vacant after the resignation of CPI(M) councillors from the municipal bodies and the AMC since March this year.