The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday announced the schedule of by-elections for only two Assembly constituencies in Manipur namely Lilong and Wangjing Tentha Assemblies. The by-polls for the two constituencies will be held on November 7.
Following the announcement, the election Code of Conduct (CC) came into immediate effect from Tuesday in the entire Thoubal district.
Earlier the ECI had declared five assembly constituencies in the state as “clear vacant” due for by-election. But, three of the five constituencies namely Wangoi Saitu and Singhat were left out. To this, the joint Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manipur, Ramananda Nongmeikapam, has clarified that the three constituencies had run into some legal issues. Altogether 13 seats are lying vacant in the state.
Ramananda was speaking to the media on Tuesday at CEO office, Lamphelpat, Imphal West. He said election notification will be issued on October 13.
The last date for filing nomination papers is scheduled on October 20 and scrutiny of nominations will be held the next day.
Withdrawal of candidature has been fixed on October 23 while counting of votes will be held on November 10.
Unlike the past elections, postal ballot option will be provided to electors who are marked as disabilities, electors above the age of 80 years, COVID-19 positive or suspect under quarantine, Ramananda added.
During the by-election process, the guidelines given by the ECI and the standard operating procedure (SOP) given by the Health Ministry will be followed strictly, he continued.
Elaborating the guidelines for the election campaign, Ramananda said for door to door campaign, the number of people is restricted to only five persons including the candidate and excluding security personnel. For the road shows the convoy of the vehicles should be broken after every five vehicles and the interval between two sets of convoy of the vehicles should be half hour.
As per the guidelines of ECI, the number of persons to accompany the candidate at the time of filing nomination is restricted to two and the number of vehicles for the purpose of is also restricted to two only, said the joint CEO.
Altogether 63611 voters, including 30930 male and 32678 female, will exercise their franchise across 78 polling stations. Of the total voters, Lilong has 32398 voters and 31213 voters in Wangjing Tentha.
Lilong assembly has a total of 194 voters aged 80 and above, while Wangjing Tentha has 317. With regards to differently abled voters, Lilong has 158 and Wangjing Tentha 56.
The total number of polling stations for Lilong AC is 49 out of which 10 are auxilliary polling stations, for the Wangjing Tentha AC the total number of polling stations is 43 out of which four are auxilliary polling stations.
