KOHIMA, Feb 26 — Unprecedented security blanket was thrown across Nagaland with deployment over 45,000 police, para-military and army personnel to ensure peaceful conduct of assembly election today amidst the shadow of large-scale intimidation and threats to voters, reports PTI. To pre-empt any untoward incident, the state government on Monday clamped night curfew in the entire state for two days and mobilised all resources for a free and fair poll despite reports of initimidation, threats and kidnapping of village elders being received by the CEO office at Kohima from various parts of the state, officials said.
Out of a total of 1,583 polling stations, 475 were identified as hyper-sensitive, 590 as sensitive and the rest as normal and accordingly eight, six and four security personnel deployed in each station respectively, officials said. While state police, home guards, village guards and 75 companies of CRPF personnel had been deployed in poll duty, two existing battalions of the BSF, 11 battalions of Assam Rifles and one brigade of the Army moved into different places to provide environmental or peripheral security.
The Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), J Changkija told PTI that the Election Commission considering the latest law and order situation in the state, the Centre had sent five additional battalions of the BSF to assist the available forces under command of the Government. The BSF personnel of these five units on Tuesday reached the state and were depatched to places where additional forces were sought by the respective district police, he said, adding that all measures were adopted to instill confidence among the electorate so that they could exercise their franchise without any fear.
Over 30,000 personnel from state police, village guards, home guards, CRPF and BSF had been deployed for poll duty and security cover of contesting candidates, while around 15,000 Assam Rifles, BSF and Army personnel were given the task of providing security in and around the polling stations, official sources said. Supporters of political parties and villagers staged protest rallies in many places against the kidnapping of village elders by underground cadres while many were injured in pre-poll clashes in tension hit Mokokchung, Dimapur and Zunheboto districts. Four persons, including a CRPF jawan, had been injured so far in poll-related violence in the state.
The Nagaland Chief Electoral Officer Lalthara, in a notification, Monday said all missing voter slips as reported by district returning officers upto February 19 had been reprinted by the Election Commission with the word ‘Duplicate’ and were being distributed. He directed all presiding and polling officials to accept the reprinted voter slips with the mark ‘Duplicate’ and to properly verify citizenship documents produced by voters before letting them exercise their franchise in Wednesday’s Assembly elections.
For the first time in the State, voter slips were issued to all heads of families to check proxy voting. Any voter who came to vote with a missing voter slip without the duplicate mark would be arrested immediately for verifying how it came into his or her possession, the notification said. Dispelling apprehension that electors not possessing their voter identity slip will not be allowed to cast their vote in the assembly polls in Nagaland, the Election Commission on Tuesday prescribed 18 other alternative documents to enable them exercise their franchise.
“The impression being given that an elector not possessing a voter identity slip shall not be allowed to vote is absolutely baseless”, the Commission said in a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer of Nagaland. An elector whose name appears in the electoral roll and who proves his identity by producing either the photo identity card or any one of the 18 alternative documents prescribed by the EC would be allowed to cast his vote, it said.
The alternative documents are : passports, driving licences, PAN cards, service identity cards, bank/kisan/post office passbooks, ration cards issued on or before December 31, 2002, SC/ST/OBC certificates, student identity cards, property documents, arms licences, conductor licences, pension documents, ex-servicemen’s widow/dependent certificates, railway/bus passes, certificate of physical handicap, freedom fighter identity cards, domicile certificate and voter slip issued by EC.