Manipur all set for April 9 polling

Sobhapati Samom

IMPHAL, April 8 – Manipur is all set to hold the Lok Sabha polls in the Outer Manipur parliamentary constituency comprising the hill districts along with six other constituencies in Arunachal Pradesh (2), Mizoram (1), Meghalaya (2) and Nagaland (1) on April 9. Polling for Inner Manipur parliamentary constituency comprising the valley districts will be held on April 17.

Altogether, 9,11,699 voters will decide the fate of 10 candidates including the sitting Congress MP Thangso Baite. The other main contestants include former MP Smt Kim Gangte of Trinamool Congress, Prof Gangmumei Kamei of BJP, C Doungel of NCP and Soso Lorho of NPF.

About 280 militants out of 2,089 cadres camping in 14 designated camps in Manipur following a suspension of operations with the government are likely to cast their votes as the authority has made necessary arrangements.

Steps are on to deploy 206 companies of security forces for holding free and fair elections in 1,406 polling stations in Outer Manipur constituency, according to State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) O Nabakishore.

“We have also identified 327 hyper sensitive, 797 sensitive and 282 normal polling stations,” said the CEO while addressing media persons here this afternoon. “All the polling stations in Chingai (62) and Ukhrul (61) Assembly constituencies in Ukhrul district have been announced as hyper-sensitive polling stations”, he informed.

The State Election authority is also planning to use four helicopters to collect the EVMs from 166 polling stations from all the hill districts excluding Senapati, he said. So far, one MI 7 helicopter has arrived and is stationed at Tulihal airport in Imphal for immediate rescue operations, if required.

Meanwhile, polling personnel of 397 polling stations out of the total 1,406 in the Outer Manipur constituency have already started to move for their respective polling stations since April 5 onwards. The remaining teams for 1,009 polling stations are scheduled to depart tomorrow, he added.

Interestingly polling personnel for two polling stations in Jiribam sub-division are using boats to reach their destination while polling personnel of the farthest polling station Tuisen and Buangumun in Vangai range in Churachandpur district have already started their three day foot march.

The Doltang polling station under Tipaimukh Assembly constituency in Churachandpur district has the least number of voters (71) while Tamenglong polling station has the largest number of voters (1222).