Tripura braces for first phase poll, over 14 lakh voters set to cast votes on April 19

The stage is all set for conducting the first phase of the Lok Sabha election in the West Parliamentary Constituency as well as in the 7-Ramnagar Assembly Constituency, where the election will be held on April 19.

Although nine candidates are in the fray in the Tripura West Lok Sabha constituency, the main battle will be mainly between BJP candidate Biplab Kumar Deb and state Congress president Asish Kumar Saha.

In the 7-Ramnagar Assembly Constituency, the fight will be between BJP candidate Dipak Majumder and INDI bloc candidate and CPIM former MLA Ratan Das.

The West Tripura Parliamentary Constituency is made up of 30 assembly constituency segments, which lie in 14 Assembly Constituencies in West, 9 Assembly Constituencies in Sepahijala, 4 Assembly Constituencies in Gomati, and 3 Assembly Constituencies in South District.

A total of 14,61,836 electorates will be cast their vote for the West Lok Sabha constituency, among whom 7,33,645 are male voters, 7,28,315 are female voters, and 58 are transgender voters. In Ramnagar, the number of voters is 45,669.

The voting will start at 7 AM and will continue till 5PM.

The parliamentary constituency has 1,685 polling booths, including 547 in the urban area and 1,138 in rural areas, and around 20,000 polling personnel engaged in the voting process. Among these polling stations, 391 polling stations are vulnerable and 171 are critical polling station.

The Returning Officer of the West Parliamentary Constituency, Dr. Visal Kumar, has stated that along with the polling personnel, an adequate number of CAPF personnel have been deployed, along with the Tripura State Rifles and Tripura Police, to ensure peace during the polling day. He also mentioned that in all polling stations, there will be 100% webcasting.

In the 2019 election, BJP candidate Pratima Bhoumik won this seat with 573,532 votes, while Congress candidate Subal Bhowmik received 267,843 votes and CPI-M candidate Shankar Prasad Dutta received 171,826 votes.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, CPIM's Shankar Prasad Dutta won from the Tripura West seat. He defeated his opponent, Congress candidate Arunoday Saha, by 503,486 votes.