Principal Correspondent
KOHIMA, APRIL 9
AN estimated 84.64 per cent voters exercised their franchise to elect the lone Lok Sabha member from Nagaland.
Addressing the customary press conference, Returning Officer for LS Poll in Nagaland, Temjen Toy said that 84.64% electorates exercised their franchise. However, he said that the final figures of vote polled will be revealed only after some of the officials from polling stations located in interior districts arrive.This shows a decrease of 6.13% of the total vote cast as the 2009 Lok Sabha poll had recorded 90.77 voters turnout.
Interior district recorded the highest turnout at 95.83% while Tuensang had the least turnout at 72.74%.
Election department officials said no untoward incident had been reported from any quarter till the last hour of polling. However, polling was adjourned for Ladaigarh polling station No. 1 under Tamlu sub-division, Longleng district bordering Assam state. He said that polling had been adjourned as Assam police did not allow entry of polling officials to the designated polling station at Ladaigarh while the agitated mob of the area were against setting up of standby polling station other than the designated one at Government Primary School, Ladaigarh.
Toy said that except for Ladaigarh, polling in the 2058 polling stations was peaceful without any major untoward incident. He said that though there were some skirmishes, the matter was resolved within the local level and there is no law and order related complaints from any corner.
The RO Nagaland also asserted that except for the technical problem there will not be any re-polling in the entire state.
Nagaland used webcasting of poll proceedings at 84 polling stations out of the 2059 stations to maintain transparency for the first time.
However, he said that unless there is an official complaint regarding proxy voting or multiple casting of vote by one person, action would not be initiated, even media persons had highlighted to have witnessed voters holding several voters’ slip and casting number of votes in raw through the ceonagaland website.
Having triangular contest, NPF candidate and Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio confidently casted his vote in the first hour at his home constituency Northern Angami-II A/C, Touphema polling station, Kohima district.
Congress candidate KV Pusa exercised his franchise at Viswema village under Southern Angami-II A/C, Kohima district while Akhei Achumi casted at Naharbari polling station, Dimapur-III A/C.
Nagaland Governor, Dr Ashwani Kumar and his spouse also exercised their franchise at Old ATI Building in Kohima Town.
There are 11,77,572 general voters while 5,376 are service voters, which takes the number to 11,82,948 electorates in the state. Out of the total, 6,00,490 (50.76 per cent) are male and 5,82,458 (49.24 per cent) are female voters.
Imchen said a total of 36,159 young boys and girls in the age group of 18-19 are first time voters.
A total of 14,735 security personnel, which include 33 companies of Central Armed Police Force like seven companies (coys) of Mizoram Armed Police, 10 coys of Tripura State Rifles, eight coys of CRPF and eight coys of BSF have been allocated to the state for polling duties.
In addition, five coys of CAPF were deployed for maintenance of general law and order problems during the elections.
The state had 12 non-vehicular polling stations. Eleven are located in Tuensang district and one is in Mon district.
