Peaceful polling in Meghalaya and Nagaland, no demand for re-poll: Poll body

Voting for the Meghalaya and Nagaland Assembly polls went off peacefully today, the Election Commission (EC) said, adding that there was no demand for a re-poll from the two northeastern states.

While both states have 60 Assembly seats, polling was held on 59 seats each, the EC pointed out.

Polling for the Sohiong seat in Meghalaya was adjourned due to the death of one of the candidates. Since the Akuluto seat in Nagaland remained uncontested with only one candidate, no election was required there.

“Polling across 3,419 polling stations in Meghalaya and 2,291 in Nagaland went off peacefully today…. Advance planning and extensive monitoring by the commission led by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar…ensured smooth conduct of elections in the two states with no re-poll reported in any of the 5,710 polling stations,” the EC said.

In 2018, 11 re-polls were held in Nagaland and one was held in Meghalaya.

Polling was also held in the Erode (East) Assembly seat in Tamil Nadu and the Sagardighi seat in West Bengal, where bypolls had to be scheduled to fill up the vacancies due to the death of the incumbent MLAs, as also in the Ramgarh Assembly seat in Jharkhand due to the disqualification of the incumbent legislator.

Voting in the Kasba Peth and Chinchwad Assembly seats in Maharashtra was held on Sunday. No voting was required in the Lumla Assembly seat in Arunachal Pradesh with the seat declared uncontested.