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Campaign picks up slowly in Arunachal

The campaigning for simultaneous polls to the two Lok Sabha and 60 assembly seats in Arunachal Pradesh slated for October 3, is picking up gradually after the expiry of withdrawal of nominations.

Three national political parties -- the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Nationalist Congress Party -- and the regional Arunachal Congress headed by former chief minister Gegong Apang, have fielded their candidates in the state. The newly floated Ajeya Bharat Party has also fielded one candidate each for the Lok Sabha and state assembly. A total of 182 candidates are in the fray for the assembly elections in the state, of which 68 are from the Congress, 23 from the BJP, the NCP 21, the AC 38, and the AJBP one, besides 29 independents.

The candidates have also started door-to-door campaigning and occasional streetcorner meetings. Two Lok Sabha seats in the state will witness a triangular contest. In Arunachal West, former Union minister of state for tourism Omak Apang is seeking re-election as Arunachal Congress candidate while the Congress has put up advocate Jarbom Gamlin and the NCP has fielded Toko Kach.

From Arunachal East, member of the dissolved Parliament Wangcha Rajkumar is seeking re-election. The BJP's Tapir Gao is expected to put up a strong resistance to him while the AJBP has also fielded C K Manpoong.

Meanwhile, the state government has made elaborate arrangements to hold peaceful and free and fair elections in the state.

Chief electoral officer R I Jayprakash said altogether 1741 polling stations will be set up for a 6,09,174-strong electorate, including 2,69,911 women. The state government has identified 415 polling stations as sensitive and 125 as hypersensitive, he said. In all, 33 helicopter sorties will be made to drop the poll material and polling staff in the far-flung areas of the state and also to ferry them back. More than 10,000 polling staff will be engaged for the smooth conduct of the poll. Over 3000 security forces, six additional CRPF companies and one SSB company will be engaged in addition to the state police for poll duties in the state, he informed.

Jayprakash said four government vehicles used by ministers had been seized so far for violation of the code of conduct. No law and order problems were reported from anywhere except a case of kidnapping of a political aspirant. It was alleged that the aspirant could not file his papers because of this, sources said.

Meanwhile, training of the polling staff is being conducted and the election office is busy printing ballot papers so that it could be despatched to all the destinations on time.

UNI

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