Lazy election day as Nagaland’s young and old vote peacefully

Dimapur, April 11 (EMN): The elections to the 17th Lok Sabha seat for Nagaland, and a constituency election for the Aonglenden assembly seat in the state’s Mokokchung district, passed off in relative peace as the electorate voted, on April 11 across the state.
The fight for the state’s lone Lok Sabha seat is a four-sided contest that includes two veterans KL Chishi of the Indian National Congress, and Tokheho Yepthomi of the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party.

Although reports about the election were still trickling in at the time this news report was being filed on Thursday, polling in Dimapur and all the way to Tuensang was reported to be relatively peaceful.

Early reports from the government’s publicity agency, Information and Public Relations department (IPR), on April 11 included updates about the situation in the 8th western Angami constituency areas; and of Tuensang, and Longleng districts.

According to the IPR, polling at western Angami constituency particularly at Khonoma and Jotsoma, were by and large peaceful. However, in most of the polling stations, the number of voters was thin unlike the number of voters during the state assembly polls. Polling also was slow, the IPR stated.

At around 8:00 am to 9:00 am the number of cast votes at polling station 8/3 at upper Khonoma was 12% while at polling station 8/2 in lower Khonoma it was 7%, the IPR stated quoting ‘polling officials.’
In Jotsoma, at polling station 8/2 which was stated to have the largest number of voters, the vote cast was just 8%, the IPR stated.

Tuensang
Elsewhere in Nagaland, the district election officer for Tuensang district, Mohammed Ali Shihab; Expenditure Observer Deepak Bhai Zala; and Tuensang’s police superintendent Bharat Laxman Markad visited almost all the polling stations within Tuensang sadar-1 and some under Sadar-2, the IPR stated.

Persons with disability were helped by students of St. John’s higher secondary school at Tuensang, during the polling process. The students expressed gratefulness to the district administration for ‘giving them the opportunity to help persons with disability in such an important national activity,’ the updates stated.

The IPR reported: ‘The volunteers were of the view that persons with disability are usually neglected during such occasions and it was a satisfying experience to be helping them.’

Longleng
Polling was peaceful in Longleng district too, and without any report of untoward incidents from there. Out of the 108 polling stations, 47 polling stations are in 49th Tamlu assembly constituency and 61 polling stations in 50th

Longleng assembly constituency. Out of 108 polling stations, female election personnel administrated 30 stations, the IPR stated.

The percentage of the cast votes was reported to be 83% in 49th Tamlu assembly constituency and 85% in 50th Longleng assembly constituency.

Here are glimpses of the April 11 election ativity across the state.