Polling in Nagaland, Meghalaya today

Dimapur/Shillong, Feb 23: Amidst violence, fear psychosis, hurling of wild allegations and, of course, intense campaign for ‘clean election’ spearheaded by Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC), the stage has been finally set for the Assembly elections in Nagaland and Meghalaya on Saturday.

In Nagaland, 11.9 lakh voters (6 lakhs male and 5.9 lakh female voters) would decide the fate of 188 candidates including two women candidates, who are fray for the 60 seats.

Among the prominent personalities whose fate will be decided in tomorrow's polls are Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio (NPF), former Chief Minister and Congress party stalwart KL Chisi, sitting Lok Sabha MP CM Chang (NPF), sitting Rajya Sabha MP Khekiho Zhimomi (NPF), SC Jamir's son Apok Jamir (Congress), SC Jamir's younger brother S.I Jamir (Congress), S.C Jamir's brother-in-law and former Opposition leader I Imkong (Congress), former Rajya Sabha MP T.R Zeliang (NPF) and NPF leader Imkong I Imchen.

The Naga People's Front (NPF) will be contesting in all the 60 assembly constituencies while the Congress party will be contesting in 57 constituencies. There are altogether 39 independent candidates while NCP has fielded in 15 constituencies. The BJP will be contesting in 11 seats while JD(U) has fielded in 3 seats. RJD will be contesting only in two seats while United Naga Democratic Party (UNDP) will be contesting only in one constituency.

In 20 constituencies of the 60 seats, there will be straight contests with two candidates each.
Meghalaya is also to go to poll tomorrow to elect its 60 members for the 9th term.

In over four decades, there has been tremendous change in the pattern of the election in the state. Despite Meghalaya being the only state where there matrilineal system, women’s representation has not exceeded three seats so far. But this election has recorded the highest number of women candidates. Out of 345 candidates, there are 24 women in the fray whose fates would be decided by 7,44,299 male and 7,59, 608 female electorates.

The numbers of women voters in the state is 15308 more than that of male voters.

This time, the election is also going to be more different in view of the second delimitation of the Assembly constituencies. The first delimitation had taken place soon after the first election held in Meghalaya after it was curved out of Assam in 1972.

This year’s election has recorded highest number of candidates in the fray since 1972.

In 1972, there were 189 candidates of whom nine were women and one had got elected.

In  1978, 255 candidates had filed their nomination papers out of which seven were female candidates who got elected.

The 1983 election happened to be an all men affairs in the house. The number of aspirants grew up to 309. Out of which eight were women but none of them made it to the house.

In 1988, the number of candidates went down to 268 of which three were women candidates and they had improved their seat to two in the house.

In 1993, there were 283 candidates of whom seven were women but their number went down to one again in the 60-member house.

The best year for women candidates was the 1998 Assembly election where they had three representations in the house. Out of 294 candidates,14 were women of which three made it to the house.

In 2003, there were 319 candidates in the fray of which 14 were women and two of them made it to the assembly.

In the last election in 2008, out of 317 candidates there were 21 women in the fray of which only one made it to the house.