After much political drama of to be or not to be, Nagaland goes to polls from 7 am on Tuesday.
The voting ends at 4 pm in the afternoon. However, in some polling booths of interior places, the voting ends at 3 pm.
The run-up to the polls saw several twists and turns – with several quarters demanding a solution to the vexed Naga problem before the elections.
Voters are casting their votes for 195 candidates from nine political parties and Independents in the fray. Polling is being held for 59 constituencies of the 60 Assembly seats as the representative for 11-Northern Angami-II, Nationalist Democratic People’s Party (NDPP) Chief Ministerial candidate and former Nagaland chief minister Neiphiu Rio was elected uncontested.
There are a total of 11,70,548 voters set to exercise their franchise in 2156 polling stations across the State on Tuesday.
The polling time in 103 polling stations spread over six districts will be from 7 am to 3 pm, while the polling time for the remaining 2053 polling stations is 7 am to 4 pm.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission of India has identified as many 1062 polling stations as critical, 530 as vulnerable and 564 as normal.
Altogether, 17, 532 polling personnel have been put in place comprising 15, 523 on actual poll duty and approximately 2,000 for other election related duty such as sector officers, EEM teams, web casting, micro observer etc.
Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) will be used in all the polling stations. Electors who do not want to vote for any of the candidates can exercise their option by pressing the button against None of the Above (NOTA) in EVMs and VVPATs.
Counting of votes is scheduled for March 3 at 8 am to be conducted at 59 halls in 12 locations across the State.