KOHIMA — After weeks of high-decibel campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections by various political parties, polling will finally begin in 102 Parliamentary constituencies across 21 states and Union Territories as well as 92 Assembly constituencies in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, in the first phase of elections which will be held on Friday.
Voting will begin at 7 am and conclude at 6 pm on April 19 (closure of poll timings may differ PC wise).
Election for Nagaland’s lone parliamentary seat will also be held in the first phase across 2342 polling stations (PS), including 738 PS in six districts of eastern area. Out of the total PS, four will be managed by persons with disabilities, 18 by the youth and 506 exclusively by women. Notably, all 28 polling stations in the 10-Northern Angami Constituency-I will be manned by women.
Besides this, as many as 1097 PS will be covered under online webcasting and 82 PS under offline videography.
In Nagaland, a total of 13, 25,383 people, including service electors, are eligible to vote. Out of the total electors, 400,632 are from six eastern districts namely Mon, Longleng, Tuensang, Kiphire, Noklak and Shamator.
As many as 14,052 polling personnel, including 48 CAPFs, Nagaland state police, home guards and village guards have been deployed on the polling day in the state. Apart from that, about approximately 9500 vehicles have been requisitioned for the same.
It may be mentioned that three candidates -- Dr Chumben Murry (NDPP), S Supongmeren Jamir (INC) and Hayithung Tungoe Lotha (Ind) -- are in the fray for the state’s lone Lok Sabha seat.
Interesting facts about Phase-1 polling
• The highest number of parliamentary constituencies among all phases.
• Over 18 lakh polling officials across 1.87 lakh polling stations
• Over 16.63 crore voters, including 8.4 crore male, 8.23 crore female and 11,371 third gender.
• 35.67 lakh first time voters registered.
• 1625 candidates including 1491 male and 134 female in the fray.
• 41 helicopters, 84 special trains and nearly 1 lakh vehicles deployed.
• 4627 Flying Squads, 5208 Statistics Surveillance Teams, 2028 Video Surveillance Teams and 1255 Video Viewing Teams to keep surveillance round the clock.
• 1374 inter-state and 162 international border check posts are keeping strict vigil on any illicit flow of liquor, drugs, cash and freebies.
• Webcasting will be done in more than 50 % of the polling stations along with deployment of micro observers in all polling stations.