Agartala, Sep 8 (IANS): The ruling BJP candidates in Tripura's Dhanpur and Boxanagar Assembly constituencies established comfortable margins over their CPI(M) rivals, even as the counting of votes was in progress on Friday under tight security measures.

Election official said that BJP candidate Taffajal Hossain in Boxanagar was leading by 13,643 votes against his CPI(M) opponent Mizan Hossain while the saffron party nominee Bindu Debnath in Dhanpur constituency was ahead of by 4,065 votes over his Left rival Kaushik Chanda.

Two rounds of counting of votes have been completed in the Boxanagar seat while one round was done in the Dhanpur seat.

According to the officials, six rounds of vote counting would be held in each constituency.

“After the completion of counting of postal ballots, counting of votes stored in the EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) have been taken up,” the poll officials said.

The counting for the bypolls, held on Tuesday, began early Friday morning amid three-tier security arrangements.

Voter turnout stood at 86.56 per cent, with 93,495 eligible voters casting their ballots.

Counting is underway in two centres at the Sonamura Girls’ Higher Secondary school in Sepahijala district under a massive security cover.

Alleging large-scale intimidation, rigging and irregularities by members and workers of the state's ruling BJP on the polling day and the Election Commission’s "inactiveness" to deal with the “terror and misdeeds”, the CPI (M)-led Left Front has boycotted the counting.

The by-election to the Dhanpur seat was necessitated after Union Minister Pratima Bhoumik resigned from the Assembly, days after she was elected from the seat as a BJP nominee.

The Muslim-dominated Boxanagar Assembly seat fell vacant after the death of sitting CPI(M) MLA Samsul Haque, who died on July 19 following a cardiac attack.