58.77 percent voter turnout in Nagaland till 1 am

Agartala, Feb 27, 2023, By Our Correspondent

58.77 percent voting in the 60-seat Nagaland assembly election till 1 am. The polling was 34.62 per cent till 11 am and 11.89 per cent till 9 am, the state election department said in a notification. As the BJP candidate won unopposed in one seat, voting is going on today in 59 seats. 13 lakh 17 thousand 634 voters will decide the fate of 183 national, regional and independent candidates of the state.
Voting started from seven o'clock this morning. It will continue until four in the afternoon. Voters have been queuing up to exercise their right to vote at various polling stations in the state since almost two hours before the start of the polling session. Citizens are voting in a festive mood despite a couple of sporadic incidents across the state.
According to political experts, this time the voting in the state will be more than last time. In the last assembly elections in 2018, the voter turnout was around 75 percent and in 2013, it was 90.57 percent.
Heavy security has been deployed in various constituencies to avoid any untoward incident. Meanwhile, there have been reports of some isolated incidents of violence between the ruling NDPP workers and Congress-allied NPF workers in Bhandari assembly constituency under Okha district.

There are a total of 13 lakh 17 thousand 634 voters in the 60-seat Nagaland assembly elections. Among them there are 7,983 service voters. The number of new voters in the state is 24 thousand 689. Besides Divyang voters are 6,970. But there are no third gender voters in Nagaland. On the other hand, Nagaland has 36 thousand 403 voters above 80 years.
According to Election Commission data, there were 2,194 polling stations in Nagaland in 2018. This time, 2,315 polling stations have increased in the 2023 assembly elections. Meanwhile, out of 60 assembly seats in Nagaland, 59 tribes are reserved. There are no seats reserved for scheduled castes in this state either.
It may be mentioned here that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate and MLA Kazheto Kinimi won unopposed on 31-AC Akuluto (Scheduled Tribe) constituency of Nagaland. On that day (February 10), the deadline for withdrawal of nomination papers, Kazheto Kinimi was declared unofficially the winner as several parties and independent candidates withdrew their nomination papers except for the BJP.