manipur govt starts preparations for Manipur elections

Imphal, Jan 17 (UNI) The Manipur government has started gearing up for the Ninth Manipur Legislative Assembly elections scheduled in February.

The Election Commission has announced that the elections would be held in three phases, February 8, 14 and 23, officials said. It has been assured by Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami and adequate security would be provided for the elections.

The CEC, during his recent visit to Manipur, had described the election as "difficult".

Officials said a total 17,06,646 voters would cast their votes including 8,82,763 women voters.

Some of the constituencies in the 60 member House has a large number of voters like Mao in Senapati District, which has 49,337 voters.

For the 2053 polling stations, about 3000 EVMs would be used.

Security would be provided on need basis and armed personnel stationed in all the stations. About 683 stations were classified as "hypersensitive", 973 as "sensitive" and 397 as normal.

About 30 general observers and 10 expenditure observers appointed by the Election Commission would be coming to the state soon, officials said.

Manipur Information Centre officials said the observers assigned for duty on the first phase poll would stay in the state from January 20 to February 8 in the first visit and from February 26 to 27 in the second visit.

In the second phase, observers would stay in the state from January 27 to February 15 in the first visit and from February 26 to 27 in the second visit. The third phase observers will stay in the state from February 3 to 27.

UNI