For the second phase of the forthcoming 12th Manipur State Assembly Election scheduled to be held on March 3, of the 391 polling stations in Thoubal and Kakching district, a total of 71 polling stations will be managed entirely by female personnel, announced Thoubal DC Ahanthem Shubas.
The 71 polling stations of Thoubal assembly constituency will be managed by women polling personnel, he told the Imphal Free Press at his DC Thoubal office on Friday.
Shubas who is also the district election officer further said that there are adequate polling personnel for 10 assembly constituencies under Thoubal and Kakching district. They have completed their training for the first phase as well, he added.
As for the second phase, the training will begin after the observers arrive. For the women polling personnel, two rounds of training have been conducted and preparations are on to provide the training online, he said.
To look after the election related work for Thoubal and Kakching district, 46 sector officers are appointed and they have been trained, he continued.
Stressing that the election expenditure needs to be seriously looked into, 26 flying escort teams have been constituted for monitoring the election expenditure. Names of the Expenditure Sensitive Constituencies have been announced and they will be given extra monitoring, he added.
All the polling stations will be sanitised prior to the voting, sanitisers, masks etc. will be distributed to the voters as well, he said.
Efforts are on to organise election related meetings under the guidelines of the ECI by following SOPs at the areas identified by the Election Commission, he further said.
Most of the preparations to be carried out by the district administration of Kakching district and Thoubal district are already completed, he continued.
He further appealed to all to conduct the election peacefully and smoothly without violence in the true spirit of democracy.
The DC added that the election notification for Thoubal and Kakching district will be announced on February 4.
February 11 will be the last date of filing nomination papers for contesting the election under the two districts which have 10 seats, he said. Scrutiny will be done on February 14 and the last date for the withdrawal of nomination paper will be February 16, he added. He reminded that the votes would be cast on March 3 and the counting will be held on March 10.
There are a total of 3,19,126 voters for both districts, of which 2,379 are disabled, 28 are transgender and remaining 3939 are senior citizens, he said.
As per the instructions issued by ECI, an option for postal ballot will be given to people with disabilities, 3rd genders and those above 80.
There are a total of 391 polling stations for both the districts, of which four auxiliary polling stations will be opened at the polling stations where there are more than 1,250 voters, he said. He said that the ECI has given approval for this.
As per the ECI, only those who have received both doses of the vaccines will be on election duties. Voters should try to get vaccinated as well before the election, he added.
