Over 79 per cent turnout was recorded in the by and large peaceful three-tier panchayat polls held on Thursday in Tripura where the ruling BJP has already won 71 per cent of the gram panchayat posts uncontested.

A State Election Commission official told The Telegraph that barring a few complaints from the Opposition CPM about “specific voters” and election agents being denied entry in polling booths, there has been no report of any untoward incident. But the issues were resolved.

“Till now (8pm) we have reports of over 79 per cent by and large peaceful polling. There is no order for repoll till now,” the official said.

However, there were reports of stray untoward developments from districts such
as South Tripura, Gomati, Khowai and Sepahijala between ruling BJP members with Opposition CPM or Congress members or Independents.

There was heavy deployment of security forces, including around 10,000 state police personnel and 30 companies of central paramilitary forces to ensure peaceful polling in a state which is infamous for poll violence.

The total voter count is 10,87,498 excluding the electorate uncontested seats. The turnout was just over 44 per cent till noon.

There are 6909 panchayat seats covering gram panchayats, panchayat samitis and zila parishad but poll was held for only 2,102 seats since the BJP, which heads the coalition government in the state since 2018, won 4,805 seats uncontested, including 71 per cent of the gram panchayat seats (6,370), 68 per cent panchayat samitis (423) and 17 per cent Zilla Parishad (116) seats.

However, the figure of uncontested win by the BJP in 2019, a year after coming to power by ending the Left Front’s 25-year-rule in the state, was 25 per cent more than in 2024. It had garnered 96 per cent of the total seats uncontested.