NEW DELHI: The counting of votes for the assembly polls 2018 of three northeastern states — Tripura, Meghalaya, and Nagaland — began at 8 am on Saturday amid tight security.

The BJP has emerged as a strong competitor in all the three states and two exit polls have forecasted that the party would triumph over the 25-year-old Left Front government in Tripura and strengthen its position in Nagaland and Meghalaya.

In Tripura where polls were held on February 18, the BJP is expected to wrest power from the 25-year-old CPM government as two exit polls forecasting that the saffron party-led association may be successful over 35 seats in the state. However, a third exits poll envisaged a close competition between the CPM and the BJP in the 60-member assembly.

In spite of large-scale holdups in VVPATs (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails) and EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines), over 92 percent (excluding 50,770 postal ballots) of Tripura's 2,536,589 voters cast their votes on February 18 and had sat a new record in the electoral history of India.

While a CPM candidate passed away in Tripura, a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) contender was killed in Meghalaya, which resulted in revoke of the polls in one seat each in the two states.

In Nagaland, Neiphiu Rio, the three-time ex-CM, and Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party contender, was elected unopposed in Northern Angami-II seat.

In Meghalaya, where polls were held on February 27, BJP will be challenging the Congress. Here Congress has been in power for the last ten years.