Elephants obstructs, but voting peaceful

SHILLONG, APR 9: A herd of elephants obstructed the sector officer near Dalu in South West Garo hills district while he was moving from one polling station to another monitoring the election process during the voting for in the Lok Sabha elections on Wednesday.

Eight candidates are in the fray for the Shillong Lok Sabha seat while only two candidates are contesting for the Tura Lok Sabha seats for which the polling process is still going on and will close at 5 pm.

Till noon, the voting to the Shillong and Tura Lok Sabha seats was reportedly peaceful in Khasi and Jaintia hills where the banned Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) had given a boycott call and even in the militants infested Garo hills districts.

Though most of the shops in Shillong were closed, but defying the HNLC 12-hour bandh people were seen standing in a queue to cast their votes to elect the Shillong Lok Sabha MP in different parts of the city. In militants infested Garo hills also the voters came out to cast their votes and elect their Lok Sabha MP.

Meghalaya Chief Electoral Officer P Naik told this website that till 1 pm the overall voting percentage in the state stand at 39 percent. As the voting will close at 5 pm, the percentage will increase significantly with Naik hoping that by the time it closes the percentage will touch 70 percent.

Naik informed that in the last parliamentary elections, the overall voting percentage in the state stand at 64 percent and felt that despite the HNLC bandh and militancy problem in Garo hills the Election Department is hopeful of touching 70 percent of overall voting in the state in this elections.

Naik also said till early afternoon there were no reports of any obstruction of incident expect that a herd of elephants near Dalu obstructed the sector officer from moving from one polling station to another to monitor the polling process.

East Khasi hills Returning Officer Sanjay Goyal informed that the election process till 3 pm was smooth and the overall voting percentage in his district was 51 percent while in West Jaintia hills district till about 1 pm the electorate turnout was about 44 percent.

During the last Lok Sabha elections, the total number of voters’ turnout in Shillong was about 62 percent and in Tura it was 67 percent.

In all the polling stations located in the city voters were seen standing in queue to cast their votes despite the boycott call given by the HNLC. Mawlai also saw voters turning out in significant numbers till about I pm to cast their votes.

In one of the polling booth in Mawlai Nongwar, a total of 200 out of the 897 voters had casted their voters till about noon while in another booth in the same polling station 218 of the 729 had exercised the franchise till noon with the presiding officer expecting the voting process to pick up late in the afternoon.

At around 11 am in one of the polling booths in Rynjah ITI 300 of the 782 voters had cast their votes while in another booth under the same polling station 255 of the 875 female voters had exercise their franchise till forenoon.

In the Lapalang polling station at one booth 247 out of the 607 voters had already cast their votes till 11 am while in another booth 249 out of the 657 electorates had already exercise their franchise.

In Barapathar polling station in one booth 303 out of the 922 voters had already cast their votes till 12 noon while in another 288 of the 727 voters had exercised their franchise.

In Lower Mawprem of the 1166 voters, 495 had already cast their votes till 12 noon and in another booth 390 of the 1095 voters had cast their votes. In Mawpun of the 866 voters 506 of them had already cast their votes till 1 pm and in RB Anupchand Hindi high school in Keating Road in the four polling booths of the 2388 voters, 1129 had already cast their voters till 1.30 pm.- By Our Reporter