Arunachal Pradesh to vote in simultaneous polls to Lok Sabha, assembly on April 19

Itanagar, Mar 16 (PTI) Arunachal Pradesh will vote in the Lok Sabha elections and assembly polls, which will be held simultaneously, on April 19, the Election Commission announced on Saturday.

The notification for the assembly elections would be issued on March 20 after which the nomination process would begin. The last date for filing nomination papers is March 27, while the scrutiny of papers would be done on March 28. The last date for withdrawal of nominations is March 30.

The counting of votes for both Lok Sabha polls and assembly elections will be held on June 4.

Arunachal Pradesh has two Lok Sabha seats and a 60-member assembly. The term of the present assembly is ending on June 2.

BJP won both Lok Sabha seats in the last elections. In the assembly, the BJP bagged 41 seats, JD(U) won seven seats, the NPP won five seats, the Congress secured four seats, the PPA won one seat and two Independent candidates also emerged victorious.

The BJP has declared candidates for all the assembly seats, and named Union Earth Sciences Minister Kiren Rijiju for the Arunachal West Lok Sabha seat and Tapir Gao as its candidate for the Arunachal East seat.

The NCP has also announced the names of eight candidates for the assembly polls.

There are 8,82,816 voters in the state, including 4,49,050 female voters, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Pawan Kumar Sain said.

The state has a total of 2,226 polling stations. While the polling station No 2-Pumao Primary School in Longding assembly constituency has the highest number of voters at 1,462, the Malogam temporary structure in Malogam village in Hayuliang constituency has only one female voter.

Polling station No 18-Luguthang in Mukto constituency in Tawang district is the highest polling station in the state, located at an altitude of 13,383 ft.

Sain said the necessary arrangements to conduct the elections have already been made and the training of all District Election Officers, Returning Officers, Assistant Returning Officers and various categories of nodal officers was completed.

Extensive awareness about the use of EVM and VVPAT has been conducted covering all accessible polling stations, the CEO said, adding that for service voters, Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballots System (ETPBS) would be used to facilitate hassle-free voting.

“First-level checking of EVMs has been completed in the entire state in the presence of representatives of national and state political parties. For the monitoring of the poll process in the state, webcasting and enabling communications on real-time environment (ENCORE) will be used, and vehicles carrying reserve EVMs will be fitted with GPS in all cellular network covered areas,” he said.

As the model code of conduct came into force with the announcement of the elections, all government functionaries should strictly follow it, he added.