Election campaign activities to stop on Feb. 27

Kohima, Feb. 21 (EMN): With the date of polling to the 13th Nagaland Legislative Assembly—Feb. 27— drawing near, the election establishment has ordered political parties and candidates to stop campaigning on Feb. 25 by 4 pm.
Informing this during a press conference on Wed. morning, the chief electoral officer of Nagaland (CEO) Abhijit Sinha has directed the parties’ ‘star campaigners’ and others not from constituency in question to leave before 4 pm on Feb. 25.
The print and electronic media are also reminded that no advertisement of any type from the political parties and candidates should be published or broadcast in any manner after 4 pm on stated date.
Strongly advising the people to exercise the principle of ‘one man, one vote,’ Sinha reminded that proxy voting is illegal. He iterated to electors that no proxy voting shall be allowed. He said for instance neither the head of the family should vote on behalf of family members nor the village council for villagers.
Presiding officers and polling parties are also directed not to allow such a malpractice in their assigned polling stations. As and when such a malpractice is detected, Sinha said, the vote in question at the polling station will be nullified and action will be initiated against the offender as well as the polling official.

All women polling teams
To encourage women’s participation in the electoral process and to motivate them to vote, Sinha said that 177 all-women polling teams out of 2156 polling stations have been set up across 12 election districts.
Mokokchung has the highest number of all-women polling teams with 32; Mon has 30; Dimapur has 26; Wokha 20; Longleng 16; Tuensang 15; Peren 11; Kohima nine; Pughoboto seven; Zunheboto six and Phek has five. It was informed that there were no reports so far from Kiphire district about the matter.
Sinha said that efforts are being exerted to ensure minimum facilities as desired by the Election Commission of India. The facilities include electricity, drinking water, toilets, ramps etc at all the 2196 polling stations. He informed that there were 2510 voters in the state who had disability.

Voter guide
About 4,20,000 households across the state will be given a ‘voter guide’ containing information about the date and time of polling; contact details of booth level officers (BLO); important websites, help-lines; required documents for identification at the polling stations; instructions about how to vote; electronic voting machines (EVM) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), and facilities being provided.
Important information including the dos and don’ts for voters at the polling station have been printed in Nagamese and distributed to households along with the photo voter slips by the booth level officers.

Alternative photo identity documents
Further, Sinha informed that electors who have been issued with Electoral Photo ID Card (EPIC) shall produce it for identification at the polling station before casting their votes. Electors who are not able to produce the EPIC shall have to produce alternative photo identity documents to establish their identity. The alternative documents are passport, driving license, service identity cards with photo; passbooks with photograph by banks/post office; PAN card, smart card issued by RGI under NPR; MNREGA job card, health insurance smart card issued by the ministry of Labour, Pension document with photograph; authenticated photo voter slips issued by election establishment; official identity cards issued to MPs/MLAs/MLCs and Aadhaar card.

Photo voter slips
To help voters know the location of their polling stations and other details, Sinha informed that voter slips bearing the photograph of the elector is being distributed to all who are enrolled by the district election officers through the BLOs.

Prohibition of exit polls

The Election Commission of India has also notified that the period between 7:00 am of Feb. 18 and 4:30 pm of Feb. 27 as the period during which conduct of exit poll and publishing or publicising by means of the print or electronic media or dissemination in any other manner shall be prohibited. This was announced by the media cell of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) on Wednesday.