Kohima: Around 82 percent of the one million plus electorate in Nagaland cast their votes Wednesday for the state’s lone Lok Sabha constituency, an official said.
An Election Commission official said that at least 82 percent of the 1,182,903 electorate had cast their votes as polling ended at 4 p.m.. No single untoward incident reported from anywhere in the northeastern state, which borders Myanmar.
“The voters turnout might be go up after the final reports come from all across the state,” an Election Commission official told reporters.
In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the turnout was around 90 percent.
“There are some reports of EVMs (electronic voting machines) snags in certain polling stations. However, the engineers instantly either set right or replaced the EVMs and voting was held as usual,” the official said.
“A conducive weather helped the voters to come to the polling stations early. New and women voters are more enthusiastic to cast their votes.”
There was a heavy downpour Tuesday night in the mountainous state.
Due to security reasons, the polling hours in Nagaland and Manipur was from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m, unlike the other northeastern states where votes can be cast between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Naga People’s Front (NPF)-led Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) is in power in Nagaland.
Chief Minister and NPF president Neiphiu Rio is contesting the polls against Congress candidate K.V. Pusa. The NPF is a partner of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Rio is the second chief minister contesting the Lok Sabha polls after his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi, who is the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.
Among the three candidates testing their electoral fortunes, Akhei Achumi is contesting on the Socialist Party (India) ticket.
In all, 1,182,903 voters including 581,758 women were eligible to cast their ballots in 2,059 polling stations.
As many as 33 companies of the central paramilitary forces had been deployed to ensure peaceful conduct of the polls.
Tight security measures have been taken across the state. Central Reserve Police Force and Assam Rifles besides the state armed forces were deployed in large numbers, an Election Commission official said.
Over 12,000 polling personnel were engaged in conducting the balloting. The poll panel hadappointed four central observers.