3-tier Tripura panchayat polls on Aug 8 after BJP won 70 pc seats unopposed

Elections to the three-tier Gram Panchayats in Tripura will be held on August 8 under a tight security cover after the ruling BJP won 4,806 seats (70 per cent) of the total of 6,909 seats unopposed in gram panchayats, panchayat samitis and zilla parishads, State Election Commissioner (SEC) Saradindu Chaudhuri said on Wednesday. 

The SEC told IANS that to hold the elections peacefully, over 10,000 state security forces, including Tripura State Rifles (TSR) personnel and around 2200 Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) personnel have been deployed.

Amidst opposition parties’ allegations of pre-poll violence, intimidation, and attacks, the ruling BJP candidates have emerged victorious without any contest in over 4,551 (71.44 per cent) of the 6,370-gram panchayat seats, while 235 (55.55 per cent) of the 423 panchayat samiti seats and 20 (17 per cent) of the 116 Zilla Parishad seats won by the BJP nominees unopposed.

According to the SEC officials, elections would be held on Thursday in 1,819 seats of the 606-gram panchayats, 188 seats in 35 panchayat samitis and in 96 seats in eight Zilla Parishads.

There are 6,370 seats in 606 Gram Panchayats, 423 seats in 35 Panchayat Samitis, and 116 seats in eight Zilla Parishads, with 33 per cent reservation for women.

The votes of the three-tier panchayats will be counted on August 12.

The Tripura High Court on July 18 directed the SEC to conduct free and fair three-tier Gram Panchayats elections on August 8.

A division bench of the High Court comprising Justice Arindam Lodh and Justice Sabyasachi Datta Purkayastha had asked the SEC to hold the panchayat elections freely, fairly and transparently.

The High Court passed the orders after the opposition Congress and the CPI-M earlier filed separate petitions before the court seeking its directions to the SEC to conduct the Gram Panchayats elections freely and fairly after a large number of violent incidents took place across the state while the candidates of the opposition parties tried to submit their nomination papers.

The Congress and the CPI (M)-led Left Front have alleged that the BJP workers and “goons” backed by them did not allow their candidates to submit their nomination papers in hundreds of seats.

The leaders of the opposition parties claimed that despite a series of requests to the SEC and the police, the BJP members and “goons” have unleashed a reign of terror across the state to prevent the opposition candidates from submitting their candidatures.

They also urged the SEC to allow their candidates to submit their nominations through e-mail, but the poll panel rejected the appeal citing lack of legal provisions in this regard.

Congress Working Committee member and former minister Sudip Roy Barman claimed that 3,383 party candidates went to submit their nomination papers in the concerned offices, but due to the violent obstruction by the ruling party cadres, they could not submit the same.

Tripura CPI (M) leader and Left Front convener Narayan Kar also claimed that the Left party candidate Badal Shil for the South Tripura zilla parishad was critically injured in an attack by BJP-backed goons on July 12 at Rajnagar in South Tripura district. A day later, he succumbed to his injuries.

The Congress and the CPI-M leaders have separately claimed that around a hundred candidates, party workers, and supporters were injured after being attacked by the ruling party members and goons backed by them since the election schedule was announced on July 10.

The BJP, however, has rejected the accusations, saying the Congress and the Left parties could not find enough candidates to field for the rural body polls.

In the last Panchayat elections held on July 27, 2019, the ruling BJP had won more than 95 per cent of the seats of which 86 per cent were unopposed, terming the entire election process as a ‘farce’ by the opposition CPI-M and the Congress.