SHILLONG/JOWAI, FEB 23: An old lady in a wheelchair was wheeled by his two sons to the polling station located at Little Flower School at Khliehshnong in Malki and another elderly man came in a crutch in Upper Mawprem Nepali Mawprem Presbyterian Church to cast their votes for electing their legislators in the ninth Meghalaya Assembly election on Saturday when the proscribe Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) had given a poll boycott.
The two elderly citizens dragging themselves out of the beds when the HNLC had given a boycott call on the polling day gives a sense of the reponse from the voters to the boycott call.
The poll boycott by the HNLC had little bearing on the polling day as voters came out to cast their votes to elect their new legislators. Till 1 pm, the percentage of the voters’ turnout was at 51 percent all over the state.
Meghalaya Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) P Naik said, “The voting till now is peaceful and I have not receive any reports from any parts of the state of any poll related problems.”
Interestingly in some of the polling stations within Shillong city, polling was quite brisk early in the morning. In Lapalang, voters were seen queuing early in the morning so sooner polling began at 7 am. Even in the ITI building in Rynjah long queue was seen at around 9 am, but it slowed down at noon.
Naik told this website that usually during the morning hours voters turn out use to be quite low in earlier elections, but this election was an exception as the voters in most of the constituencies came out quite early to cast their votes
The state election department replaced 20 faulty Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) before the poll started. Naik informed, “We had replace these machine with new machine before voting process started in 18 places but in two places we replaced them after the voting process began”
Even in Mawlai constituency voters turn out in quite large number to cast their votes. In the polling booth in the Don Bosco museum at Mawlai, there long queue was seen as the voters waited for their turn to cast their votes.
In the West Jaintia hills district, the deputy commissioner and District Election Officer (DEO) PS Dkhar said, “ The voting percentage till 1 pm was 45 and hopefully it will increase in late afternoon.” He said there were no reports of any untoward incident being reported from any part of his district.
This website reporter visited the different polling stations within Jowai constituency and found till 1 pm the voting percentage in most of the polling booths were around 70 percent.
East Garo hills deputy commissioner and district election officer Vijay Kumar Mantri also said that voting was going on smoothly. “I have not received any report of poll hindrances from any part of the district, “he informed.
Polling will ends at 4 pm. In the 2008 assembly election, the total voting percentage in Meghalaya was 89.04 and Naik is hoping to beat this record even with the boycott call and the militancy problem in the Garo hills sector. – By Suraj Joshi & Evanjopline Dkhar
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