Tripura: Congress slams Left Front, Election Commission for vote rigging

TNT News

AGARTALA: The Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee on Tuesday criticized the Left Front for involving the administration in severe vote rigging at 22 constituencies out of total 28 constituencies in the recently concluded Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) elections on May 3. The party said that the Left Front would never get involved in vote rigging unless they were not sure of their victory.

"The vote rigging was done in many selected booths of at least 22 constituencies to ensure their victory. This time, the Left Front has directly involved the administrative officials like presiding officers, polling personnel in vote rigging. Few still photographs published in media reports revealed that the presiding officers have cast their votes on behalf of the voters in a few polling booths. Democracy was totally mocked," MLA Ratan Nath told the reporters at Congress Bhawan in Agartala this afternoon.

Condemning the role of state Election Commission and the Tripura government in this elections, Ratan Nath said that the Commission worked at the behest of the CPI (M) party. "There is no difference between the CPI (M) party and the Commission. According to the rule, it is the duty of the Election Commission to distribute voter slips among the enlisted voters, but in this election, the CPI (M) party set an exceptional example by distributing voter slips," Nath said.

"We could not predict the ADC results slated to be declared tomorrow due to severe vote rigging," Nath said.