Re-poll in 4 polling stations in Nagaland on Wednesday

way2barak, Feb 28 : The Election Commission on Tuesday announced re-polling in four polling stations in Nagaland, where Assembly polls were held in 59 of the 60 constituencies, officials said.

The fresh polling will be held on Wednesday from 7 a.m to 4 p.m. at New Colony polling station (Zunheboto assembly constituency), Pangti-V (Sanis AC), Jaboka Village (Tizit AC), Pathso East Wing (Thonohy AC).

The EC in a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Nagaland V. Shashank Shekhar said that on the basis of reports submitted by General Observers, and after taking all material circumstances into account, the Commission hereby declared that the poll taken on February 27 at the four polling stations to be void and appoints the March 1 (Wednesday) as the date of fresh poll.

Election officials in Nagaland did not explain to the media about the reasons for the re-polling in the four polling stations.

According to election officials, voting was largely peaceful on Monday across the northeastern state except for some incidents of violence in five districts — Mokokchung. Wokha, Mon, Zunheboto and Tseminyu.

In Akuk village under the Bhandari Assembly constituency in Wokha district, supporters of a candidate attacked the rival party workers using sharp-edged weapons in which three persons were injured.

Firing by underground militants, and stone pelting by rival party workers also reported in Wokha and Mon districts injuring five people, including two security personnel.

Chief Electoral Officer, V. Shashank Shekhar, briefing the media on Monday night, said that the law and order situation all over the state was largely peaceful and polling has been successfully completed in all the 2,315 polling stations.

Meanwhile, the Nagaland government on Tuesday prohibited the mobile internet and data service of all the service providers in the entire Kiphire district with immediate effect till further orders in view of the tension in the district after Monday’s elections.

Nagaland Home Commissioner Abhijit Sinha in a notification said that messaging services like SMS and WhatsApp and other social media platforms could be used for spreading rumours, false information, and for circulating inflammatory texts, pictures, videos etc. which may exacerbate the law and order situation.