Over 78 per cent votes were polled till 4 pm in the Charilam (ST) Assembly constituency in Tripura today, an election official said. The figure is likely to go up as many voters are still standing in queue to exercise their franchise, additional chief electoral officer Tapas Roy said. He said that a total of 78.45 per cent votes have been polled in the assembly constituency. Polling has been peaceful and incident free, Roy said. Newly-appointed Deputy Chief Minister and state BJP vice-president Jishnu Deb Burman were among the contestants for the seat. CPI-M opted out of the race for the seat on March 9 alleging large-scale post poll violence in the constituency. It was the death of the CPI-M candidate Ramendra Narayan Debbarma that had led to the countermanding of the poll at Charilam. Jishnu Dev Burman is pitted against Congress' Arjun Debbarma, Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura's Uma Shankar Debbarma and Independent Jyotilal Debbarma. Dev Burman, who belongs to the Tripura royal family, was sworn-in by Governor Tathagata Roy on March 9, along with Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb and others. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was present on the occasion. The BJP-IPFT combine has overthrown the 25-year-long CPI(M)-led Left Front government in the rule. They combine swept to power in the state winning 43 out of the 59 seats for which elections were held on February 18.
The BJP had won 35 and IPFT eight seats. The CPI(M) got 16 seats. Counting for the Charilam seat will be held on March 15, EC sources said.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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