India News | Nagaland to Vote in Historic Civic Body Polls on Wednesday

Kohima, Jun 25 (PTI) Nagaland will conduct the first elections to its civic bodies in two decades on Wednesday, officials said.

The northeastern state has three municipal councils and 36 town councils, and the last elections were held in 2004.

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It is also historic as this would be the first-ever municipal elections in the state to be held with 33 per cent reservation for women.

The government had announced elections to Urban Local Bodies several times in the past but objections from tribal bodies and civil society organisations against reservation for women, and tax on land and properties had held back the polls.

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The state government scrapped the taxes and also managed to convince the civil society organisations and tribal bodies to accept reservations for women as the Parliament enacted the law, and the Supreme Court had ordered it.

Among the parties contesting the elections are the NDPP, BJP, Congress, Naga Peoples' Front (NPF), Rising Peoples' Party, RPI (Athawale), JD(U), LJP, NCP and NPP.

A total of 2,23,636 people -- 1,10,115 male and 1,13,521 female -- will be exercising their franchise to decide the fate of 523 candidates from 11 political parties for 214 wards.

Voting will commence at 7.30 am and conclude at 4pm, an election official said, adding that the votes will be counted on June 29.

Instead of EVMs, voting will be done through ballot papers, he said.

The voting will be held in 420 polling stations, which have been categorised as hyper-sensitive, sensitive and normal. Eight security personnel will guard the hyper-sensitive polling stations, six personnel will be deployed for the sensitive ones and five for the rest.

Each polling station will have four polling personnel with one officer, two assistant polling officers and a grade 4 staffer, officials said.

The personnel have already reached the polling stations and all arrangements have been put in place for the peaceful conduct of the elections, they said.

The state government has declared a general holiday on Wednesday to facilitate people to exercise their franchise in huge numbers.

Meanwhile, the Eastern Nagaland Peoples' Organisation (ENPO) has decided that the six eastern districts of the state will not participate in the elections.

ENPO, the apex body of seven Naga tribes living in the six eastern districts, has been demanding a 'Frontier Nagaland Territory', claiming that the region has been neglected for years.

There are 14 town councils in the ENPO area. As many as 59 nominations were accepted from the area but the tribal bodies compelled the candidates to withdraw from the race.

The ENPO also refrained from participating in the April 19 Lok Sabha polls for the lone seat in the state.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)