AGARTALA, July 15 (TIWN): The three-tier panchayat polls ended on Tuesday amidst pitched violence in several parts of the state. Polling started at 7 AM this morning and continued with brisk pace throughout the day till 4 PM. Polling was suspended in three locations after errors in ballot papers were reported by voters and polling agents.

Seat no 7 of Bhatilarma gram panchayat of Bishalgarh block, seat no. 1 of gram panchayat constituency no. 1 of Kadamtala block in Dharmanagar sub-division and a seat of South Panisagar gram panchayat in Panisagar block would go for repoll on July 17. The repoll process would start at 7 AM and would continue till 4 PM, State Election Commissioner Y Kumar said here today.

Twelve persons were injured in poll violence at Anandanagar gram panchayat, Chandrapur gram panchayat and Sonamura gram panchayat. One of them sustained a gunshot wound from political clashes.

Speaking to reporters at the civil secretariat this evening, Kumar said that according to preliminary reports, 86.45 percent votes were cast across 16 blocks. Reports from the rest of the 19 blocks kept coming till late night.

The highest voting turnout was reported from Mohanbhog block with a 91.23 percent average polling recorded till end of polls, 90 percent polling was reported from Boxanagar block, Kalacherra block and Kumarghat block. 89 percent voting was recorded from Kalyanpur block.

Asked about reports of violence in the poll process, State Election Commissioner Kumar said that six persons were injured in a clash between CPI (M) and Congress supporters at Sonamura block, four were injured at a clash between supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and CPI (M) in Chandrapur area in Udaipur sub-division of Gomati district. Two others were injured at Anandanagar gram panchayat of Boxanagar; one of them sustained a bullet injury.

Polling was disturbed for a while at North Ramchandraghat gram panchayat in Khowai district after one Sekhar Malakar Das snatched a ballot paper and soiled it. Das reportedly created the trouble after he discovered technical defaults in the ballot papers. He was arrested soon after.

Telephone calls with complaints of poll violence, threat perceptions, tension kept coming to me throughout the day, State Election Commissioner Y Kumar said. He added that each complaint was individually dealt with.

The State Election Commission had deployed over 17 thousand poll personnel this panchayat election including 130 women to handle 23 solely women-run polling stations. Over 12 thousand police and TSR jawans werw pressed into action for full proof security among whom 6,800 were engaged for duty in the polling stations. Seventeen additional BSF companies were approved for area domination and law and order check in different security threat perception areas.

A total of 10,322 voters cast votes in the EDV poll process from July 11 to July 12. 6,593 among them were civilian poll personnel engaged for polling station duty; 3,494 police and TSR jawans cast votes alongwith 158 drivers and cleaners and 77 other poll personnel appointed from the offices of SDM and BDOs across the state. Ninety percent of all poll personnel and security personnel, who applied for EDV, availed the facility.