75% Nagas vote, 1 killed; Meghalaya turnout 67%

authorities are yet to get the complete data.

Nagaland and Meghalaya have a 60- member House each but voting was held for 59 constituencies each in these states. While one candidate was declared elected unopposed in Nagaland, election in Meghalaya’s Williamnagar constituency was countermanded due to the killing of NCP candidate Jonathone N. Sangma in an IED blast on February 18.

In Meghalaya, over 18 lakh voters — more than 9 lakh women and 8.96 lakh

Men — are registered in the 59 seats. In Nagaland, there are more than 11.91 lakh electors, of which 6.01 lakh are men and 5.89 are women.

Violence broke out during voting in Nagaland on Tuesday as supporters of the Naga People’s Front ( NPF) and the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party ( NDPP) clashed near a polling booth in Akuluto. The polling process, however, was not disturbed due to violence, police said.

In another incident, a blast was reported from a polling booth at Tizit village in Mon district about an hour before the voting started. Police said that one person was injured in the explosion.

Chief electoral officer Abhijit Sinha said, “A crude bomb was lobbed at the polling booth around 5.45 am, in which one village council member, Yanlon, suffered minor injuries in the leg.”

Elections in Nagaland this year were a triangular contest with the BJP entering into alliances with NDPP led by threetime chief minister Neiphiu Rio. A group of 10 parties in Nagaland had called for putting off elections till the conclusion of the peace talks in the militancyhit state.

In Meghalaya, except for the two state parties — the United Democratic Party ( UDP) and the Hills State Peoples Democratic Party ( HSPDP) — which forged a pre- poll alliance and contested in 45 seats, 13 other political parties contested independently.

The Congress and BJP were pitted against each other with the Congress fielding 59 candidates and the BJP naming candidates for 47 constituencies.

Though they contested the polls separately, in Meghalaya, the NPP of Conrad Sangma, son of former Lok Sabha speaker P. A. Sangma, is BJP’s partner in the North East Democratic Alliance ( NEDA).