Correspondent
IMPHAL, April 7
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]ll the 123 polling booths in Chingai and Ukhrul assembly constituencies (AC) in Manipur’s Ukhrul district have been announced as the hyper sensitive polling stations and for this the state election authority is all set to provide adequate armed security forces for a free and fair elections in the ensuing 16th Lok Sabha polls in the Outer Manipur parliamentary constituency (hill districts) on April 9.
Though the Outer Manipur seat is scheduled to organize on April 9 along with 6 others constituencies in the Arunachal Pradesh(2), Mizoram(1), Meghalaya(2) and Nagaland(1), the inner Manipur parliamentary constituency (valley districts)is scheduled on April 17.“The Election authority has identified polling stations in Chingai and Ukhrul ACs have been announced as hyper-sensitive polling stations,” says Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) O Nabakishore of Manipur. There are 62 polling booths in Chingai while around 61 in Ukhrul.
“We’ve also identified 327 hyper sensitive, 797 sensitive and 282 normal polling stations,” says CEO Nabakishore while addressing media persons in Imphal this afternoon. “So steps are on to deploy 206 companies of security forces including 159 armed security and 47 unarmed security personnel for holding free and fair elections this time across its 1406 polling stations in Outer Manipur constituency.”
The state election authority is also planning to use 4 helicopters (2 Chetak and 2 MI 7) to collect the EVMs from 166 polling stations from all the hill districts excluding Senapati using 25 helipads, CEO said. So far one MI 7 helicopter has arrived and stationed at Tulihal airport in Imphal for the immediate recues operations if any.
Altogether 9,11,699 voters will decide the fate of 10 candidates including the sitting congress MP Thangso Baite. The other main contestants include former MP Ms Kim Gangte of Trinamool congress, Prof Gangmumei Kamei of BJP,C Doungel of NCP and Soso Lorho of NPF.
Besides 280 surrendered militants out of 2089 cadres camping across 14 designated camps in Manipur following a suspension of operations with the government are likely to cast their votes as the authority made necessary arrangements.
Meanwhile polling personnel belonging to 397 polling stations out of the total 1406 in the Outer Manipur constituency have already started to move for their respective polling stations since April 5 onwards. The remaining teams for 1009 polling stations are scheduled to depart tomorrow, he added.
Interestingly polling personnel for two polling stations in Jiribam sub-division are using boats to reach their destination while polling personnel of the farthest polling station Tuisen and Buangumun in Vangai range in Churachandpur district have already started their 3 day long foot march.
The Doltang polling station under Tipaimukh assembly constituency in churachandpur district has the least number of voters (71) while Tamenglong polling stations has the largest number of voters(1222).
