Itanaga:

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday issued a notification to hold the first phase of Lok Sabha and Assembly elections simultaneously in Arunachal Pradesh on April 19.

The state election office has issued separate gazette notifications for the conduct of elections to 60 assembly constituencies and two Lok Sabha seats in the northeastern state.

Joint Chief Electoral Officer Liken Koyo said that with the issuance of the notification, the process of filing nominations has begun.

The last date to submit nomination documents is March 27, and document review will take place on March 28. The last date to withdraw a nomination is March 30.

The term of the current state parliament will end on June 2.

The state has a total of 8,86,848 voters, including 4,49,050 women voters, 5,740 service voters and 5 third gender voters.

There are a total of 2,226 polling stations in the state, out of which 156 are managed entirely by women, 49 by youth and three by persons with disabilities (PWD).

A total of 480 polling stations in the state are in the shadow zone, with 588 polling stations identified as critical and 443 polling stations identified as vulnerable.

Phumao Primary School, the No. 2 polling station in Long Din Assembly Constituency, has the largest number of voters, with 1,462 people, while the Malogan temporary building in Malogan Village, Ha Yuliang Constituency, Ancuo District has only one female voter.

Lugutang polling station No. 18 in Mukto constituency of Tawang district is the highest polling station in the state at an altitude of about 13,383 feet.

The Joint Chief Electoral Officer revealed that as of now, the photo electoral roll coverage in the state is 10%, which is the same as the Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) coverage.

He said that all necessary arrangements for the conduct of elections have been completed and the CEO office has also completed training of all district election officers, election officers, assistant election officers and various nodal officers.

The Joint CEO said that an extensive awareness program on the use of EVMs and VVPAT has been carried out in various districts covering all accessible polling stations, including many walk-up locations, adding that for serving voters, the Electronic Transmission Postal Ballot System (ETPBS) ) will be used to facilitate hassle-free voting.

Koyu added that level one inspection of EVMs had been completed across the state in the presence of representatives of national and state political parties.

Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Pawan Kumar Sain said that apart from the available police forces in the state, the ECI has also deployed 75 companies of the Central Paramilitary Forces (CPMF) for free and impartial conduct Simultaneous polls for Lok Sabha and Parliament.

He said CPMF companies have been deployed in all districts of the state and have started area control exercises at various critical and vulnerable polling stations.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party won two Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 elections. In the Assembly, the BJP got 41 seats, JD(U) got 7 seats, State Janata Party got 5 seats, Congress got 4 seats, BJP got 1 seat, two independent candidates also won .

The BJP has announced its candidates for all parliamentary seats and appointed Union Earth Sciences Minister Kiren Rijiju as candidate for Arunachal Pradesh West Lok Sabha seat and Tapir Gao for Arunachal Pradesh Candidate for Erbondong seat.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)