SHILLONG, April 16: The stage is set for the voters of Shillong and Tura constituencies to elect their representatives to the Lok Sabha in less than 48 hours from now.
The state’s Chief Electoral Officer, BDR Tiwari said that the polling parties would start moving to their polling stations from Wednesday and that necessary arrangements have been made keeping the possibility of rainfall in mind.
He said some 30,000-35,000 people, including security personnel, are involved in conducting the giant exercise.
There are 22,26,567 electors in the state, including 10,99,517 male, 11,27,047 female and three third-gender voters. The number of electors in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections was 19,11,372.
Voting would be conducted across 3,512 polling stations – 2,288 in Shillong and 1,224 in the Tura parliamentary constituency.
Booth-level officers are distributing 22,26,567 voter information slips and 2,030 accessible voter information slips with Braille features to electors with visual impairment, Tiwari said.
The home voting facility is being extended to 21,900 eligible voters comprising 10,180 senior citizens and 11,720 PwDs. Of these, 4,515 opted to vote from home.
Officials said 1,938 people were bound down under various sections of the CrPC and 252 non-bailable arrest warrants were received, out of which 110 have been executed and 65 have been returned to the court.
According to Tiwari, three FIRs for poll-related campaigns have been received till now and 12,617 (59.86%) arms have been deposited so far.
The run-up to the elections saw an all-time high cash seizure of Rs 43.13 crore in the state, with Rs 33.45 crore seized before the model code of conduct came into force. Rs 9.68 crore was seized post-MCC.
Sixty-three complaints were received and resolved through the NGSP portal while seven C-vigil cases were resolved.
Tiwari also said 133 polling stations would be in mobile shadow zones while there are 477 vulnerable and 29 critical polling stations. A total of 187 polling stations border Assam and 140 border Bangladesh.
Eight Assembly segments have been marked expenditure-sensitive and 39 interstate ‘nakas’ have been set up.
The smallest Assembly constituency by area is West Shillong with an area of 2 sq. km while the largest segment is Mawshynrut measuring 1,530 sq. km.
The smallest constituency by the size of electors is Dalu (22,398 voters) and the largest is Mawlai with 50,953 voters.
