Polling begins in Manipur; do or die for Ibodi

Imphal, Feb 8: Amidst a massive security blanket, polling for thefirst phase Assembly election to 19 seats in Manipur began on a dullnote at 0700 hours this morning.

Voting was being held in altogether ten segments of Thoubal district, six of Senapati district and three of Ukhrul district.

The fate of 77 candidates, including two women, would be decidedin 718 polling stations, 271 of which had been identified ashyper-sensitive and 443 sensitive.

About 804 EVMs were being used in the first phase.

Chief Electoral Officer R R Rashmi said all the polling stationswere being guarded by armed security personnel and the sensitive andhyper-sensitive ones were being manned by two or more sections of armedpersonnel.

Each section comprised about eight to ten security personnel.

A total of 5,99,377 electorate, including 3,07,052 women, will exercise their franchise.

Wangkhem, Karong and Kangpokpi Assembly segments have the highest number of six candidates.

While, the Congress had fielded nominees in all the 19 seats, theManipur People's Party was fighting it out in eight, the NCP and theRJD in five each, the CPI in four, the LJSP in three, the Manipur StateCongress Party and the SP in two each and NNP and NPP one each.

Prominent among those, whose fate will be decided in this phase,are Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh, who will contest from Thoubal andHeirok seats, and Speaker Md Maniruddin Shaik (Congress), who will tryto retain Lilong against Md Allauddin of NCP and Md Helaluddin Khan ofthe Rashtriya Janata Dal.

UNI