Voting underway in Meghalaya, Nagaland for crucial Assembly elections; Blast reported in Tizit polling station

Voting is underway in Meghalaya and Nagaland for the crucial Assembly elections on Tuesday.

Voting for the 60-member assemblies will be held from 7 am till 4 pm, except in some polling stations of the interior districts of Nagaland, where the process is scheduled to conclude at 3 pm.

A blast has been reported in Nagaland's Mon district. Sources have told DNA that  a hand-made bomb was hurled at a polling booth early morning before voting started. One person hase been injured in the blast. Incident occurred at Tizit. The polling station is close to an army camp.

While the two states have a 60-member house each, voting will be held only for 59 constituencies in both.

In Meghalaya, the election has been countermanded in Williamnagar in the wake of the killing of an NCP candidate Jonathone N Sangma in an IED blast, while in Nagaland, Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party Chief Neiphiu Rio has been declared elected unopposed from the Northern Angami-II constituency.

A total of 361 candidates are in the fray, while over 18.4 lakh voters can exercise their voting rights. Out of the 3,000 polling booths, webcasting will be done at 193 polling stations, while 312 micro observers have been deployed.

Restrictions on the conduct of any exit poll and publication and dissemination of result of such exit poll have also been imposed till 4:30 pm tomorrow, reports suggest.

The results of the polls in the two states will be declared on Saturday, along with those of Tripura.

For the Congress, the poll outcome in Meghalaya is particularly significant as it has been ruling the state for the last 10 years.

But this time, the BJP is leaving no stone unturned to throw the Congress out of power and add Meghalaya into its kitty.

Political observers are keenly watching the BJP's push in the north-east, a Congress stronghold, where the saffron party has traditionally been a marginal player.

In Meghalaya, the Congress and the BJP are pitted against each other. While the former has fielded 59 candidates, the latter has put up nominees in 47 constituencies.

Though they are contesting the polls separately, in Meghalaya, the National People's Party (NPP) of Conrad Sangma, son of former Lok Sabha speaker P A Sangma, is the BJP's partner in the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA).

In Nagaland, BJP's hope hinges on its alliance partner NDPP (the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party) of Neiphiu Rio, which is contesting from 40 seats. The saffron party has fielded candidates from the remaining 20 seats.

The Congress, which has given three chief ministers to Nagaland since the state's inception in 1963, is contesting from only 18 seats, two less than the BJP, an emerging entity in the north-east.

There are 370 candidates in the fray in Meghalaya. A total of 18.4 lakh voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in 3,083 polling stations in the state.

In Nagaland, a total of 11,91,513 voters -- 6,01,707 (50.50 per cent) men and 5,89,806 (49.50 per cent) women -- will exercise their franchise tomorrow. There are also 5,925 service voters.

Of the 2,156 polling stations in Nagaland, 1,100 were declared critical, 530 vulnerable and 526 normal, he added.

(With ANI and PTI inputs)