SHILLONG: The high voltage campaigning for the May 28 Ampati by-poll will end on Saturday at 5 pm.
All leaders from different political parties are aggressively campaigning for their respective candidates in Ampati though the constituency is witnessing a triangular fight between Congress, NPP and an independent candidate.
The polling will be held from 7 am to 5 pm, one hour more than what is allotted during polls in winter.
Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong and most of the Cabinet ministers had extensively campaigned for the MDA candidate Clement G Momin, while the Congress too have not left any stone unturned as senior leaders from the party and MLAs had tried their best to woo the voters for Miani D Shira, the daughter of former chief minister Mukul Sangma, who vacated the seat for her.
The election department is all set and prepared to hold the by-poll which has received unprecedented attention from all political parties.
Chief Electoral Officer FR Kharkongor said that though there are only 39 polling stations in the constituency, the election department has arranged for 61 ballot units and 65 units of Voters’ Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).
He, however, said that the rest of the EVMs and VVPATs are kept reserved incase of any malfunction even as he added that usually failure of EVMs are always below 2 per cent.
Four companies of Central Armed Paramilitary Forces have already reached Ampati to ensure peaceful election.
One company of CAPF will be stationed in the constituency after the polls during counting of votes and for strong room duty.
Till date, there has been no report of violation of model code of conduct from any party leaders or political parties in the constituency.
A notification from the Election Commission of India also restricted the conduct of any exit poll and publication and dissemination of results of such exit poll from 7 am to 6.30 pm on May 28.
