AGARTALA, Feb 20 (TIWN): Ahead of the deployment for election duty in different polling segments of village committee election, all the appointed polling personnel’s including police and civil administration staff on Saturday cast their votes through postal ballot at Dukli for which respective special arrangements are made at Dukli.

Officials said postal ballot voting for the election staff would be completed on Saturday. After that the deployment of staff for normal polling scheduled for February 24 would begin, sources added.

Central paramilitary forces deployed to maintain strict security arrangements during VC election to arrive in the state from Saturday.

The Union home ministry has deployed 15 companies of paramilitary forces for strict security during the elections which is scheduled to be held on February 24 to 587 village committees under the Tripura tribal autonomous district council areas.

However, the central paramilitary forces, including the CRPF and BSF, would be backed by police and the Tripura State Rifles (TSR).

On the other hand, campaigning for the village committee polls has gained momentum and all the political parties are gearing up for the election.

However, with the intentions to cleanly sweep the election, the ruling party has started full-fledged preparation regarding the selection of the candidates and other procedures for conducting the poll is underway.

Reportedly, Polls to 587 village committees in Tripura would be held on February 24, the state election commission announced recently. The village committees, falling in areas under the politically important Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC), are equivalent to gram panchayats outside the council areas. State Election Commissioner G. Kameswara Rao notified to media that elections for the 4,597 seats would be held on February 24. Of the total seats, 4,018 are reserved for tribals, 180 for people from Scheduled Castes and 2,005 for women. Instead of Electronic Voting Machines, ballot boxes would be used for the polls. This is being done, according to the election laws of the TTAADC.