Only 4 Women Among 183 Candidates For 59 Seats In Nagaland Elections

A total of 183 candidates are in the fray for 59 seats of the Nagaland assembly, and of them, only four are women, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) V Shashank Shekhar said on Friday.

Briefing reporters after the deadline for the withdrawal of candidatures was over, Mr Shekhar said BJP candidate Kazheto Kinimi won the Akuluto assembly constituency in Zunheboto district without a contest.

Of the 225 nominations received, 25 were found invalid, while 16 candidates withdrew their candidatures till Friday evening, he said.

The ruling NDPP is fighting the elections on 40 seats, the BJP is fighting on 20 seats, the Congress on 23 seats, while the NPF is contesting on 22 seats.

The LJP (Ram Vilas) is fighting the polls on 15 seats, NPP and NCP on 12 each, RPI (Athawale) on nine seats, JD(U) on seven seats, RJD on three seats, and the CPI and Rising People's Party are fighting one seat each. There are also 19 Independent candidates.

The constituencies with the highest number of six candidates each are Tening in Peren district, Sanis in Wokha district and Tehok in Mon district, the CEO said.

The four women candidates are Hekhani Jakhalu of NDPP in Dimapur-III seat, Rosy Thompson of Congress in Tening seat, Salhoutuonuo of NDPP in Western Angami seat and Er Kahuli Sema of BJP in Atoizu seat.

A total of 13,16,064 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the February 27 elections. Of them, 7,982 are service voters.

The votes will be counted on March 2.

Polling station 71-Merapani in the Bhandari seat in Wokha district has the lowest number of voters at 37, while polling station 12-Usutomi in the Atoizu constituency in Zunheboto district has the highest number of voters at 1,348.

The Mokokchung Town seat in Mokokchung district has the lowest number of voters at 8,302, while the highest number of voters is in the Ghaspani-1 seat in Chumoukedima district with 74,395 people eligible to vote.

Mr Shekhar said the security forces are taking various measures to prevent the distribution of illicit liquor, cash, drugs, arms and ammunition and other contraband substances to ensure a peaceful, free and fair elections.

He said Rs 2.71 crore in cash, liquor worth Rs 3.72 crore, drugs and narcotics worth Rs 25.7 crore and freebies worth Rs 3.46 crore were seized till Thursday since the elections were declared on January 18.

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