Agartala, January 18, 2023: Tripura’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Kiran Gitte on Wednesday announced that the 13th general election of sixty assembly constituencies in this state will be held on February 16 next while the counting will be held on March 02 next.

Notably, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar in presence of Election Commissioners Anup Chandra Pandey and Arun Goel on Wednesday afternoon officially announced that the general elections in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura will be held in February and counting of votes in March.

In a press conference at Civil Secretariat here in Agartala city on Wednesday evening, CEO Gitte said that the gazette notification of the general election in Tripura will be issued on January 21 next and the election process shall be completed on March 04 next.

Citing the facilities available for election process, he said “There are one Returning Officers in all assembly constituencies, 50 percent extra numbers of EVMs are prepared for the ensuing polls, general observer, counting observer, police observer, micro observer, special observer, etc will be deployed. Online voting process has also been disseminated to all the political parties, online apps, etc.”

“The last date of filing nomination papers is January 30 and the date for scrutiny of nomination papers is January 31 while the last date for withdrawal of nomination by the candidatures is February 02 next. The date of counting is on March 02 next”, he added.

Being asked about webcasting issue, CEO said that 72 polling stations don’t have proper internet connection out of 3,328 polling stations, so those stations will be recorded completely.

According to the final list of voters published by the Chief Electoral Officer’s office, there are 28 lakh 23 thousand 822 electorates including 10,344 service voters, 65,044 first-time voters, 17,297 persons with disabilities (PwDs), 77 third genders and 38,039 senior citizens i.e. 80 years and above in Tripura.

The 28.23 lakh electorates will exercise their franchise on February 16 next in 3,328 polling stations at 2,504 locations which was 25.73 lakh voters at 3,214 polling stations in 2018 assembly election. The average voter per polling station is 845.

In the 60-member assembly, BJP has 34 sitting MLAs, IPFT has four, CPIM has 15 and Congress has one MLA while six seats are lying vacant at present.

The CEO Gitte was accompanied by Additional CEO-I Usa Jen Mog and Additional CEO-II Subhasish Bandopadhyay in the press meet.