Agartala: Three special observers of the Election Commission arrived in Tripura on Monday to review February 27 poll preparedness and security arrangements, officials said.
The three Special Observers are Yogendra Tripathy, retired IAS officer of Karnataka cadre, Vivek Johri, former Director General of Police of Madhya Pradesh, and B. Murali Kumar, IRS officer, who was Special Observer in Assembly elections of Gujarat (2022) and West Bengal (2021).
The EC observers would hold separate meetings with senior civil and police officials including District Magistrates and Superintendents of Police of all eight districts.
After Tripura, the special observers would go to poll-bound state Meghalaya, where elections would be held on February 27.
Besides the special observers, the EC also appointed five other categories of observers – general observers, police observers, expenditure observers, micro observers in each polling station and counting observers.
The poll panel has so far deployed around 200 companies of Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) in Tripura and more CAPF comprising Assam Rifles, Border Security Force, Central Reserve Police Force, Central Industrial Security Force companies are expected to come in the state.
“The flag marches by the CAPF have already started since the second week of this month to ensure confidence building among the political workers for campaigning and among the citizens to cast their votes freely without any fear. The security forces are deployed well before the poll process so that they get familiar with the locality. Local police should extend necessary cooperation to the CAPF,” an EC official said.
The EC on January 19 ordered an inquiry into attacks on a Congress bike rally in Majlishpur Assembly constituency in West Tripura district and next day asked the state government to suspend a Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) and remove two Officer-in-Charge (OCs) of two police stations.
(IANS)
