Deputy EC reviews poll situation in Tripura

Agartala, Jan 9 (UNI) Deputy Election Commissioner R Balakrishnan reached Tripura today for a few hours to oversee the poll preparations and law and order situation.

Official sources said Mr Balakrishnan will conduct a meeting with chief secretary, director general of Tripura police, inspector general of Police Intelligence and other senior officials of the state administration here.

He would also hold separate meetings with the recognised political parties of the state as well as with officials of the state election department to understand the latest situation before announcing the poll date for Tripura.

However, state election department officials here indicated that the ECI would announce the Assembly polls scheduled for Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland by the second week of the month and the commission was all set to conduct the election on time.

Chief Electoral Officer G S G Ayyanger said 2,391 polling booths would be set up this year, 19 more from the 2003 elections and poll officials would be dispatched by helicopter to at least 12 booths.

''The unique feature of the election will be that ut of a total electorate of 20,30,915 only 36 will be without photo-affixed identity cards,'' said Ayyanger and added more than 63,000 new voters were included in the rolls and the names of 28,000 fake, minor and dead ones have been deleted.

Dr Ayyanger also added that the full commission of ECI would again be visit the state in third week of January.

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