Agartala, 9th April 2026: The by-election to the 56-Dharmanagar Assembly constituency in Tripura registered an average voter turnout of 52.76 per cent till 1 pm on Wednesday, reflecting steady polling since the morning hours.
Official figures showed that voter participation was 15.63 per cent till 9 am, which increased to 33.50 per cent by 11 am, before crossing the halfway mark in the afternoon.
Polling began at 7 am in all 55 polling stations of the constituency, where voters queued up from early morning to exercise their franchise in the bypoll triggered by the death of BJP MLA and former Assembly Speaker Biswabandu Sen.
Chief Electoral Officer Brijesh Pandey said the election process has remained orderly and uninterrupted, with no reports of malfunctioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) till the afternoon.
Returning Officer Debjani Chowdhury stated that polling has so far been peaceful under close monitoring by election authorities.
The contest features six candidates — BJP’s Jahar Chakraborty, Congress nominee Chayan Bhattacharya, CPI(M)’s Amitabh Datta, SUCI’s Sanjay Chowdhury, Independent candidate Brajalal Debnath, and Amra Bangali nominee Bibhas Ranjan Das.
A total of 46,183 voters are eligible to cast their votes in the constituency, including 22,380 men, 23,763 women, and 924 first-time voters.
