Nagaland ready for by-polls; CEO confident of free, fair, peaceful polls
Source: Oken Jeet Sandham (NEPS) *
Kohima, October 31 2020:
Nagaland is ready for the conduct of the by-polls in the 60 Pungro-Kiphire and 14 Southern Angami 1 Assembly Constituencies on November 3, 2020 .
Election officials in Kohima are confident that the elections to the by-polls in the state will be free, fair, and peaceful.
All the security apparatus and polling officials are arranged for the smooth conduct of the by-polls in the two Assembly Constituencies in the state, Abhijit Sinha, IAS, CEO, Nagaland told NEPS here at his office chamber on Saturday.
He said there were 99 polling stations spread over the two constituencies - 77 in 60 Pungro-Kikhire Assembly Constituency and 22 in 14 Sothern Angami 1 Assembly Constituency.
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He said about 500 polling officials would be involved in conducting the polls in all the 99 polling stations.
"The polling starts from 6 a.m.and ends at 4 pm," the CEO said and further stated that they had given one hour extra, otherwise, it would be usually from 7 a.m.to 4 p.m."The one hour extra is to regulate Covid-19 protocols for the voters," he said.
He said the election office had already arranged masks, hand sanitizers, and disposable gloves for all the voters.
Besides, there would be an official at every polling station for the thermal scanning of every voter.
"If any voter having abnormal temperature or other symptomatic signs, they will be asked to cast their votes at last," he added.
"All voters should use hand sanitizers, wear masks and hand gloves inside the polling stations and maintain social distancing as per the Covid-19 protocols." He also said all the polling officials would observe Covid-19 protocols.
When asked about the sensitive polling stations, the CEO said there were some vulnerable and critical polling stations in both the constituencies.
"We have enough forces including CRPF, IR and the DCs and SPs of the Districts have been keeping vigil on all these vulnerable and critical polling stations," he added.
With regard to the show-cause notices served to the chairmen of three Village Councils in Kiphire, Penkim Village Council, Tsurevong Village Council, and Lopfukong Village Council, for asking voters to vote for a particular candidate, the CEO said they were yet to get a response from them.
Till the time of filing this report, they are yet to get a response from the three Village Council chairmen.
Meanwhile, there was a complaint from the NDPP that there would be possible threats and intimidations from the supports of Independent and the NPF candidates in the 14 Southern Angami 1 Assembly Constituency.
The party was reported to have lodged a complaint about providing additional security to thwart such possible threats and intimations.
* The sender of this news can be contacted at nepsonline(AT)yahoo(DOT)com .