IMPHAL: Amid the incidents of violence, the stage is all set for the first phase of Assembly elections in Manipur on Monday.
Elections will be held in 38 Assembly constituencies in the first phase where the electoral fate of 173 candidates, including 15 women, will be decided.
Election Officials said that a large contingent of Central Armed Police Forces personnel were deployed in all the 38 poll-bound Assembly constituencies while the 9,895 polling personnel have already reached their designated 1,721 polling stations.
To hold a Covid-safe election, mandatory sanitization of the polling stations was done in different parts of the state and other measures, including the use of masks and sanitizer by everyone, was strictly followed.
In the first phase, there are a total of 12, 22,713 voters including 6, including 29,276 women.
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The poll-bound Northeastern state witnessed several incidents of violence in the past few days killing two people and injuring many, including a candidate and a candidate’s father.
Development, militancy, illegal trade of drugs, repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Power) Act, 1958 (AFSPA), women empowerment, rising unemployment and corruption were the main issues highlighted by the political parties in their campaign.
In Monday’s polling, the electoral fate of Chief Minister N.Biren Singh, his cabinet colleague Thongam Biswajit Singh, NPP candidate and Deputy Chief Minister Yumnam Joykumar Singh, senior BJP leader Thokchom Satyabrata Singh, Congress’ Ratankumar Singh, Lokeshwar Singh, Saratchandra Singh, sitting party MLA Akoijam Mirabai Devi are at stake.
Firebrand women leader and Janata Dal (United) candidate Thounaojam Brinda, who was the Additional Superintendent of Police (Headquarters), is also contesting in the first phase of polling from the Yaiskul constituency.
The BJP, which had secured 21 seats in the 60-member Assembly in the last Assembly polls in 2017 and wrested the power for the first time, stitching together a coalition government with the support of four NPP MLAs, four Naga People’s Front (NPF) members.
However, this time the BJP, NPP and the NPF are contesting separately and have put-up candidates against each other.
Congress, which governed the state for 15 consecutive years (2002-2017) and emerged as the single largest party by securing 28 seats in the 2017 poll, this time formed a Manipur Progressive Secular Alliance (MPSA) after forging a pre-poll alliance with four Left parties and Janata Dal-Secular.
The second phase of polling will be held in 22 seats on March 5.
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The counting of votes will take place on March 10.