The Left wing extremists, who had asked citizens to boycott the poll process going on in the state, carried out the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast aimed at a vehicle carrying the troopers returning from poll duty.

This happened days after the first phase of assembly election to 18 seats in the state was conducted on Monday.

In the other incident a gunfight broke out during a search operation not far from the IED blast spot. The 85 Battalion of the CRPF troopers were attacked by the insurgents. "Firing is still on," Deputy Inspector General M. Dinakaran told.

Both attacks took place simultaneously at 9.15 a.m. in the Mahadev Ghat area, a police officer said.

The truck attacked was a civilian store vehicle and the driver was among those ijuried.

It was the ninth Maoist attack in 19 days in the poll-bound state where the final phase of voting to 72 seats is scheduled on November 20.