SHILLONG, Jan 18: The Election Commission of India on Wednesday announced that Meghalaya will go to polls on February 27 and the counting will take place on March 2.
Following the announcement, the state’s Chief Electoral Officer, FR Kharkongor told reporters that January 31 will be the date of gazette notification, February 7 the last date of filing nominations, February 8 the date of scrutiny of the nominations and February 10 the last date for the withdrawal of candidature.
The term of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly will expire on March 15.
“The counting will be on March 2. All the strong rooms across the districts have been identified and sufficient arrangement is being made at all the counting centres. We have sufficient numbers of EVMs and VVPATs and two rounds of first-level checking have been done,” he said.
Of the 60 Assembly seats in the state, 55 are reserved for Scheduled Tribes and five are general. The state has a total of 21,61,129 voters – 10,68,801 males, 10,92,326 females and two transgenders.
Kharkongor said there are 3,844 service electors, an increase of 2.6% over the last draft electoral roll while 13,848 names were deleted from the voters’ list due to their death or shifting of address.
“We have registered 4,29,62 more voters than in 2018, which translates into an 18% increase. The registration of voters in the 18-19 age group is 81,443,” he said.
The CEO said the total number of polling stations in Meghalaya has also increased.
“We had a total of 3,083 polling stations in the previous elections. This has increased to 3,482, which is 147 more than in 2018,” he said. He said there will be an endeavour to provide assured minimum facilities in all the polling stations across all the 60 constituencies and there will be a special focus on the rights of people with disabilities (PwDs) with wheelchairs, ramps and poll volunteers in place to ensure accessibility.
However, the PwDs and senior citizens above 80 years can choose to vote from their homes by filling in the 12d form.
“A team from the district election offices will be going to the houses of such voters. This facility was not there in 2018,” he said, pointing out that the form would be redundant if they choose to go to the polling station concerned.
Kharkongor said that the state had sought 119 companies of security forces but the Election Commission approved 120, of which 40 companies have been deployed. The remaining companies will be deployed closer to the polls.
He said there are 399 vulnerable and 747 critical polling stations, but the scenario may change.
“There will be webcasting in some 50% of the polling stations, which means more than 1,700 polling stations will be covered by webcast. There will be some sort of camera arrangement for the remaining polling stations,” he added.
This election will see model eco-friendly polling stations and the first-time voters will be recognised with certificates and medals, Kharkongor said.
He said there will be 120 all-women polling stations and youth-managed polling stations apart from the poll volunteers.
The CEO further said that a number of apps such as C-vigil and ‘Know your candidate’ will be made available.
