[caption id="attachment_129143" align="alignleft" width="550"]
Central police forces during a flag march that was conducted in the colonies and wards under 10 Northern Angami-I A/C in view of the by-election, in Kohima on Thursday.[/caption]
Our Correspondent
Kohima, July 27 (EMN): With barely two days left for the by-poll to the 10th Northern Angami-I assembly constituency, the curtains came down on election campaigning this evening at 4 pm and security in the vicinity has been fortified with three companies of Central Armed Police Forces aiding the state police.
The by-election will see a head-to-head between veteran regionalist and octogenarian former chief minister Dr. Shürhozelie Liezietsu (NPF) and human rights activist-cum-academician and political greenhorn Kekhrie Yhome (Independent).
Elaborating the security arrangements for the impending by-election, Superintendent of Police Kohima Joseph Hesso told reporters that pre-poll security is already in place including foot patrolling, mobile patrolling, mobile check points and raids are being conducted at different locations.
He said an area domination exercise, covering the wards and colonies under 10-Northern Angami-I assembly constituency, was carried out Thursday morning in the form of a ‘flag march’ with forces comprising of the CRPF, BSF and DEF Kohima.
For the polling day, the police chief said there would be separate arrangements, wherein the inner security will be purely manned by the central forces while state police will provide outer security including mobile and static forces.
“We have adequate forces…. We will try our best to ensure there is a free atmosphere so that every voter can come and exercise their franchise,” Hesso said.
Also briefing the media about the election preparedness, Deputy Commissioner & District Election Officer Kohima Rajesh Soundararajan informed that out of the 25 polling stations, 17 have been identified as critical.
However, he said all adequate arrangements were made for the election and an atmosphere has been created where the voters need not have any fear or apprehension, and they could freely exercise their franchise.
He mentioned that training of all the poll parties have been completed, polling materials are ready for dispatch and infrastructure for all the polling stations are set while awareness campaigns on the use of EVMs and VVPATs (Voters Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) were carried out in eight locations under the constituency. The polling will be held from 7 am till 4 pm on July 29.
The official also informed that arrangements are being made to ensure that ramps were in place in all the polling stations and that the authorities have tied up with one society for availability of wheelchairs so as to facilitate persons with disability(ies) to go and exercise their franchise.
Addressing a separate press conference today at his office chamber, Chief Electoral Officer Nagaland Abhijit Sinha while explaining the inclusion and feature of VVPAT for the 10th Northern Angami-I by-election, assured that secrecy of vote is paramount and that secrecy has to be maintained at all cost.
As required by the Election Commission of India, he informed, VVPAT machines will be used for the second time in Nagaland along with EVMs, the first being in Noksen constituency during the last Assembly elections. Sinha said the VVPAT will enable the voter to see for seven seconds, the ballot slip containing the serial number in the balloting unit and name of the candidate and candidate’s symbol behind a translucent screen, after which the ballot paper would automatically get cut and drop into a sealed box. He explained that while the use of VVPAT was to physically show to the voter to whom he/she is voting, the number of ballot papers of a particular candidate can be found out from VVPAT and can be crosschecked during counting, under certain circumstances. However, this will not compromise the secrecy of the voter, he stated.
The CEO also said in a rare case of malfunctioning of the voting machines where a voter sees that he/she sees the name of another candidate other than the one he/she opted for, in the VVPAT, he/she should immediately convey it to the presiding officer.
Sinha assured that while polling officers were trained to sort out any problem, the election department has also mobilised 10 engineers to be moving around with sector magistrates for any technical assistance. He said all the polling stations will have micro observers (central government officers) who will be under the direct control of the election observers- general and expenditure observers detailed by the ECI.
CEO also informed that all the polling stations will have mobile videographers as well as a fixed video camera which will be connected to the web so wherever the connectivity is good, it would be webcast. The video records will be kept for scrutiny if there are any complaints, he added.
Taking into account the spread and geographical area of the 25 polling stations across 18 locations under the constituency, CEO also informed that the stations have been divided into four sectors and each sector will have a magistrate who will be moving from one polling station to the other to oversee the situation on polling day.
He also informed that a mandatory mock poll will be conducted one hour before the actual polling begins to ensure that everything was fine and after mock poll certificates were verified, the presiding officer will reset the EVM/VVPAT and start the actual polling process.
With everything in place, he said the authorities were hoping that the election process will be conducted in a smooth and orderly manner and of conducting a free and fair election in the by-election.
Additional CEO N Moa Aier stated that the department has been trying its best under SVEEP activities to spread clean election campaign. While acknowledging the role of many NGOs and the church towards this endeavour particularly the NBCC, he remarked that the department was very appreciative of the Kohima Village Council and Kohima Village Youth Organization openly endorsing clean election and requested all the electorates of the 10th Northern Angami-I AC to actively participate in the by-election and cast their votes ‘cleanly and fairly’.
As per the election department data, the 10 Northern Angami-I AC currently has 16,235 electorates, of which 8538 are female and 7697 are male, and there are 28 service voters.
