By election to Thangmeiband AC and Thongju AC
Thang'band records 85 pc turnout, Thongju 89 pc, repoll for one ps on nov 23
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, November 21 2015 : The by-election to Thangmeiband and Thongju Assembly segments went off smoothly except for one polling station in Thongju AC where the EVM went out of order.

Whereas Thongju recorded 89.61 per cent voter turnout, poll percentage in Thangmeiband was pegged at 85.39 per cent.

Out of the total 28215 voters, 25,284 cast their votes in Thongju AC.

In Thangmeiband AC, 22,421 cast their votes against the total 26,256 voters.

5/25 Torban Kshetri Leikai polling station of Thongju AC where the EVM malfunctioned would go to repoll on November 23 .

Polling in Thangmeiband Assembly constituency was by and large peaceful today.

The Assembly segment has 41 polling stations.

As announced earlier by the election office, voting started at 7 am and continued till 4 pm.

Though three candidates are vying for Thangmeiband seat in the by-election, it was mostly rival workers of Congress and BJP who were seen at almost all the polling stations.

The rival political workers were also seen ferrying and escorting voters from their respective homes to polling stations.

They also opened several polling camps near the polling stations where they served voters whom they thought to be supporters of their respective candidates.

Aged, young and even invalids were seen casting votes at different polling stations.

Long queues were seen in front of several polling stations including 9/3 Tarung Primary School polling station and 9/2 Sinam Nodiya Government Primary School polling station of Thangmeiband Sinam Leikai.

Highest voter turn out was seen between 9.30 am and 1 pm.

With all the polling stations already declared hypersensitive, security forces kept a watchful eye around all the polling stations until the voting hours were over.

Groups of rival Congress and BJP workers were seen gathered on road sides and play grounds near several polling stations.

Although the voting hour should end at 4 pm, the voting was virtually over in most of the polling stations of Thangmeiband AC at around 3.30 pm.

Although there was a report of some people clicking photographs using mobile phones inside 9/24 polling station, there was no report of any untoward incident.

Polling in Thongju AC too went off smoothly with the exception of minor confrontations between supporters of rival political parties.

Notably, Thongju has a total number of 28,215 voters; 14565 females and 13650 males.

There are 45 polling stations across the Assembly segment.

The by-election to Thongju AC was necessitated following disqualification of former MLA Th Bishwajit.

Although the polling hour started at 7 pm, people were seen queuing up before polling stations much earlier.

Even as there were no glitches in the polling process, one EVM installed at 5/ 25 Torban Kshetri Leikai polling station went out of order.

Subsequently, the presiding officer wrote to the RO suggesting repoll at the particular polling station.

Altogether 967 voters are registered against the particular polling station.

After more than 50 per cent of the voters have cast their votes, it was noticed that the total number of votes shown by the EVM counter was different from the actual number of votes cast.

This led to a ruckus between supporters of rival candidates.

Nonetheless, the situation was kept under control with the intervention of security forces.

Soon after, the presiding officer halted the voting process, informed a source.

Notably Thongam Bishwajit (BJP), Bijoy Koijam (INC) and GA Tonsana Sharma (MDPF) have been fighting for Thongju Assembly seat.

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