Meghalaya presents first five voters mementoes to boost voter turnout

Garo Hills/ Meghalaya: Meghalaya presented mementoes for the first five voters in an attempt to boost voter turnout and voting in the early hours. Polling is going on 3,419 polling stations in 59 Assembly seats in the state, Asian News INternataional reported.

The polling is scheduled to end at 4:00 pm.

There are 60 Assembly seats in the state, and 59 are going to the polls. Polling in the Sohiong Assembly constituency was postponed due to the demise of the state's former Home Minister and United Democratic Party (UDP) candidate from the seat HDR Lyngdoh.

Of the 60 seats, 36 are in the Khasi, Jaintia Hills region, while the rest are in the Garo Hills region.

Among 21 lakh plus electorates in the state, 10.99 are women, and 10.68 are men. Around 81,000 of the electorates are maiden voters.

In the case of candidates, 36 of 369 are women. One hundred twenty polling booths from 3,149 are all women-managed, 60 are model polling stations, and another 60 are PWD polling stations.

Chief Electoral Officer, Meghalaya FR Kharkongor, informed that 640 polling stations were marked as 'vulnerable', 323 were 'critical', and 84 were identified as both. The Election commission deployed 119 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) for security.

On Saturday, EC ordered to seal Meghalaya's international borders with Bangladesh till March 2. The state shares 443 km of borders with Bangladesh and 885 km with Assam.

Kharkongor further said that Section 144 of CrPC has been imposed along the international borders.

The EC had banned the publication of exit poll projections in the state from 7 am on Friday to 7 pm on the polling day in a bid to ensure a free and fair election.