Assam: Voting begins for North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council election

The voting began at 8 a.m. on Monday.

Six out of 28 constituencies were notified as uncontested.

1,15,615 voters, including 57,602 males and 58,013 females, will exercise their franchise across 231 polling stations in the district.

Tight security arrangements have been made in the polling stations.

There are around 15 polling stations that have been identified as very sensitive polling stations while 36 identified as sensitive and 21 are identified as comparatively safe polling stations.

There are 16 female polling stations.

State Election Commissioner Alok Kumar said that the last date for filing nominations was December 21 and scrutiny of applications was done on December 22.

"The polling will be held on January 8, the repolling will be held on January 10 and the counting of votes will be held on January 12. There are about 1,41,124 voters and 280 polling stations. Out of the total polling stations, 100 are sensitive and 27 are very sensitive. We have made some extra arrangements for sensitive polling stations, where one micro observer will be deployed in each sensitive polling station, and CCTV cameras will be in the polling stations also," Alok Kumar said.

According to the State Election Commission, out of the total voters, 70485 are male voters and 70639 are female voters.

"The Model Code of Conduct shall come into force with immediate effect in the North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council areas," the State Election Commission said.

Notably, in 2019, the BJP won 19 out of 28 seats in the NCHAC, the Congress won 2 seats in the most populated constituency, i.e Haflong and Garampani, while the Asom Gana Parishad won 1 seat and the rest were won by BJP-backed independent candidates. Later, AGP members and one Congress member defected to the BJP. (ANI)