AGARTALA:
The opposition parties of Tripura including Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPIM) and Congress have demanded the deployment of three-layer security in the counting halls with the Central Armed Paramilitary Force (CAPF).
Left Front convener, Narayan Kar, has written a letter to Chief Election Officer (CEO) Kiran Gitte demanding three charters point of demand including the arrangement of three-layer security.
“We got feedback from a reliable source that, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would desperately try to overpower all the counting halls, especially in two counting halls in Agartala town, and capture the hall driving out the opposition counting agents to manipulate the election results in their favour in league with some of their cohort police officials”, the Left Front leader said.
He further said a three-layer security ring may be set up around the Counting Halls with CAPF.
“Uninterrupted CCTV cameras with coverage of entire hall must be ensured in all the counting halls and utmost care may be taken against disruption of its functioning,” Kar wrote.
Kar further said that all the counting agents must verify their authenticity with photo identity card and demanded that no unauthorised persons be allowed to enter the counting hall.
On the other hand, chief of Pradesh Congress, Birajit Sinha also raised similar demands.
“During bye-election in most of the polling station, BJP didn’t allow our polling agent. During counting we are demanding three-layer security with CAPF and uninterrupted CCTV cameras with coverage of the entire hall,” Sinha told The Meghalayan.
The counting of votes for Tripura bye-election, which was held on June 23, will take place on June 26. Counting of two seats including 6-Agartala and 8-Town Bordowali will be done in Agartala’s Umakanta School while counting of other two seats will be held at Kamlapur in Dhalai district and in Dharmanagar in the North district.
An official of the CEO’s office said that the counting would be started at 8 am tomorrow.