Voting for Tripura assembly elections begin

Agartala: Voting for the Tripura assembly elections to decide fate of 249 candidates, including Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and TPCC President Sudip Ray Barman, began Thursday amidst tight security.
Men and women in large numbers queued up in front of polling stations well before voting opened at 7 am in the state. Polling ends at 4 p.m.
Chief Minister Manik Sarkar casted his vote around 9:40 a.m.
An electorate of 23,52,505, including 11,64,656 women, would exercise their franchise in the election belonging to 16 political parties and independents.
The main contest here is between the Left Front and its allies, and the Congress and its partners.
The CPI-M, the dominant partner in the Left Front, is contesting in 56 seats. The RSP will battle it out in two seats, and the CPI and Forward Block are contesting in one seat each.
The Congress is contesting in 48 seats and its alliance partners INPT in 11 and National Conference of Tripura in one.
Meanwhile, all efforts have been put in place here to avoid any untoward incident during the polling.
Around 50,000 personnel have been deployed to ensure free and fair polling to the 60-member assembly.
The Border Security Force (BSF) has completely sealed the 856 km-long border with Bangladesh and deployed additional forces to prevent infiltration.
The Election Commission has formed flying squads and Static Surveillance Teams to combat the menace of cash doles and bribes and carrying of illegal arms.
The campaigning for the polls ended at 4 p.m. yesterday. Tripura has been under the Left Front rule for two decades now and if it wins this time, it will be its fifth straight term in power.