75 per cent polling in Nagaland, 67 in Meghalaya

Seventy-five per cent polling was recorded in Nagaland and 67 per cent in Meghalaya in the assembly polls held today in the two northeastern states, Election Commission (EC) officials said.
In last assembly elections, 90.57 per cent polling was recorded in Nagaland and 89 per cent in Meghalaya.
The final polling per cent is expected to increase in both states as many people were still in queues till the last reports came, an EC official said.
Briefing the media, OSD in the Election Commissioner Chandra Bhushan Kumar said that voting process was completely peaceful in Meghalaya without any incident of violence.

In 59 seats of Meghalaya, polling was conducted in all 3,025 polling stations. In one seat Williamnagar (ST), polling was adjourned because of death of the NCP candidate on February 18.
Over 18 lakh electors -- more than 9 lakh females and 8.96 lakh males -- are registered in these 59 seats. This is one of the few states where women outnumber men in the electoral list.

Kumar further said more than Rs 1.20 crore were seized by the EC's expenditure monitoring teams besides over 25,000 litre of liquors in the state.
In Nagaland also, polling was held for 59 seats as one candidate was elected unopposed. There are more than 11.91 lakh electors in the state, of which 6.01 lakh are males and 5.89 females, Deputy Election Commissioner Sudeep Jain told reporters here.

In order to ensure peaceful and trouble-free security atmosphere, 5,443 arms comprising 11.67 per cent were deposited. Five hundred and thirty vulnerable hamlets were identified and confidence building measures were taken in all these hamlets.
Counting for both states along with Tripura will be held on March 3.