New Delhi: The Election Commission of India announced the schedule for assembly elections to three North East states—Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland—on Thursday.
While polling for assembly elections in Tripura will be held on 18 February, the states of Nagaland and Meghalaya will go to polls on 27 February. Counting for all three states will be held on 3 March.
“Model code of conduct comes into force now in all three states of Meghalaya, Tripura and Nagaland,” said chief election commissioner Achal Kumar Joti during a media interaction to give details of the poll schedule. He also said that Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) will be used in the three elections.
“VVPATs along with EVMs (electronic voting machines) during the polling in state, VVPAT slips will be matched with CUs. Limit of expenditure is Rs20 lakh per candidate in all the three states,” said Joti.
Elections to the three states are significant as they comes at a time when the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is looking to expand its political footprint in North East, Congress is struggling to maintain what was once its electoral dominance in the region and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM is looking to beat anti-incumbency for a consecutive sixth term in Tripura.