Two phase polling in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura

The dates for Assembly elections in the three north-eastern states of Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura have been announced on Thursday.

While Tripura goes to polls on February 18, polling in Meghalaya and Nagaland will be held on February 27.

An announcement to this effect was made by the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Achal Kumar Joti while addressing the media in New Delhi on Thursday.

Counting of votes in all the three states will be held on March 3 next.

With the announcement of poll dates, the model code of conduct comes into force in all the three poll-bound north- eastern states.

While Meghalaya is ruled by Congress-led government with Mukul Sangma as the Chief Minister, Tripura is traditionally ruled by the Left Front with Manik Sarkar at the helm of affairs. Nagaland has a government led by Nagaland People’s Front with T R Zeliang as the Chief Minister.

The terms of the present Assemblies in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura will expire on March 6, 13 and 14 respectively. The Legislative Assemblies in all the three states have 60 members each.

All the three Assemblies have 60 seats each.

Meanwhile, the final rolls for all the three states have already been published.

The final rolls for the Nagaland Assembly polls consist of 11,89,264 voters, lower than the electorate size of 11,92,377 in 2013.

Meghalaya has also published its final electoral roll for the upcoming Assembly polls showing a record of over 18.30 lakh voters.

Of the total 18,30,104 voters, the state has registered more women voters than men.

There are a total of 9,23,848 female voters and 9,06,256 male voters. In 2013, there were 15,02,509 voters in Meghalaya, which has now been increased by 3,27,595 in the last five years (21.8 per cent increase).

Among other categories of voters, the state has 42,843 young voters in the age group 18 to 19 years.

The final electoral roll of poll bound Tripura showed a growth of 2.52 per cent voters with the total number going up to 25, 69,216.

Of the total voters, 13,03,420 are male, while 12,65,785 are female and 11 are from the third gender.

During electoral rolls revision process, names of altogether 34,845 voters were deleted while as many as 63,219 names were included and among which 47,803 are new voters.

Meanwhile, companies of central paramilitary forces have already started coming into all the three states with security heightened ahead of the Assembly elections.