First phase of polls for Lok Sabha Elections 2014 begins amid tight security

The first phase of the 16th Lok Sabha have begun on April 07, Monday morning in north east India for five of the 14 seats in Assam and one of the two seats in Tripura.

A total of 51 candidates including five women are in fray for the 5 seats of Kaliabor, Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Lakhimpur and Tezpur. Amidst tight security over 64 lakh voters will be able to exercise their votes in the polls. Of these around 180,000 are first time voters.

Around 8,558 polling booths are set up for the voting taking place from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. in this phase. Section 144 has been invoked and Indo-Bangladesh border has been sealed from Sunday. Around 35 companies of central para-military forces have been deployed.

Additional Chief Electoral Officer R. C. Jain said to the media that 2710 polling stations are vulnerable and armed security forces are deployed near 1200 polling stations with two helicopters also pressed into service.

Election Commission has also allowed live web casting at around 200 polling booths which can be viewed by anyone through the link http://ceoassam.nic.in/webcast2014.html

The 51 candidates in the fray include Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi’s son Gourav Gogoi. In Tripura prominent candidates include former vice-Chancellor of Tripura Central University and Chairman of the state unit of TMC Ratan Chakraborty.

The 16th Lok Sabha elections for the total of 543 seats will be held in nine phases with the last poll day being May 12. The counting of votes will take on May 16.