Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday urged all citizens of Tripura to cast their votes as the polling for the Tripura Assembly elections began on Thursday amid tight security.

Polling kicked off at at 7 am and will continue till 4 pm. “Urging our sisters and brothers of Tripura to cast their vote to ensure that a development-oriented government is formed and the era of peace and progress that has already started continues smoothly. Come out and vote for a prosperous Tripura,” Shah tweeted.

According to Election Commission, there are 28.14 lakh eligible voters in this year’s polls of which 14,15,233 are men, 13,99,289 are women and 62 belong to the third gender.

Voting is underway at 3,337 polling stations across the Northeast state.

Adequate security arrangements have been made for the polls, with as many as 97 all-women police stations. The polls this year will see 94,815 voters in the age group of 18-19 years and 6,21,505 in the age group of 22-29 years. The highest number of voters are in the 40-59 age group, at 9,81,089.

The fates of the 259 candidates vying for 60 Assembly seats will be sealed on Thursday.

The BJP is locked in a triangular contest this year, with the Congress-CPM fighting in alliance and the Trinamool Congress seeking expand its footprint in the Northeast state. However, it is the Tipra Motha, an alliance of regional outfits representing indigenous communities floated by royal scion Pradyot Kishore Debbarma in 2021, which is seen as a dark horse in this year’s Assembly polls.

The BJP is contesting 55 seats, leaving the remaining six seats for all IPFT to contest. However, both allies have fielded candidates in the Ampinagar constituency in the Gomati district.

The Left will contest 47 and Congress on 13 seats, respectively. Of the total 47 seats, the CPM will contest 43 seats while the Forward Bloc, Communist Party of India ( CPI) and Revolutionary Socialist Party ( RSP) will contest one seat each.

Tripura is the first state to go to the polls this year. While polling for Nagaland and Meghalaya assemblies will be held on February 27, five more states face elections this year in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.