Assam Election: Final Phase of Polling Begins For 40 Seats

Polling for the third and final leg of Assam Assembly elections has begun on Tuesday morning with COVID safety protocols as well as security arrangements in place.

To ensure a free and fair election, a total of 320 Centre Armed Police Forces (CAPF) companies have been deployed at the polling stations. Out of these 320 CAPF companies, 30 are reserved for strong room duty and others for law and order duties

With the COVID-19 situation worsening, the poll body had issued guidelines lowering the maximum number of voters per polling booth from 1,600 to 1,000. The guidelines include sanitization of EVMs, wearing of masks, thermal scanners, soaps and water at booths.

A total of 40 constituencies are going to polls in the third phase. Out of the 126 seats, 47 went to polls in the first phase and 39 in the second phase.

In the final phase, 337 candidates are in the fray, including 12 female candidates and 325 male candidates. Notably, this phase will decide the fate of BJP strongman Himanta Biswa Sarma in the Jalukbari constituency. MLAs Atul Bora from Dispur, and Suman Haripriya from Hajo are also in the fray.

The main contest is seen to be between the BJP-led NDA and Congress-led Mahajot.

There are 79,19,641 general electors in the third phase. Of these, 40,11,539 are males, 39,07,963 are females, and 139 are other genders. The number of service voters stood at 24,460.