Arunachal Pradesh Assembly elections: Three BJP candidates elected unopposed

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Arunachal Pradesh opened its account with three candidates on Thursday declared winners from their respective seats way before the Assembly elections take place in the state. The BJP candidates who elected unopposed in the 60-member Assembly are Kento Jini from Along East constituency in West Siang district, Taba Tedir from Yachuli seat in Lower Subansiri district and Phurpa Tsering from Dirang seat in West Kameng district.

The development comes following the rejection of "defective" nomination papers of opponents in two cases and the withdrawal of candidature of rivals in the third. Thursday was the last date of withdrawal of candidature for Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly Elections in April.

BJP nominee Kento Jini won from Along East assembly constituency after the returning officer rejected the nomination of State Congress vice-president Minkir Lollen, citing several disputes in his papers during scrutiny process on Tuesday. The case with Toko Yaram, a female candidate of Janata Dal (United), was somewhat similar in Yachuli which led to Taba Tedir's win from the seat. Phurpa Tsering from Dirang seat emerged victorious after Congress nominee Tsering Gyurme and Independent candidate Gombu Tsering withdrew their papers on Thursday.

With the withdrawal of nominations by 20 candidates till Thursday, a total of 191 candidates remained in the fray to contest in 57 assembly constituencies of the state. The ruling BJP has now 57 candidates while opposition Congress would contest on 47 seats, National Peoples’ Party (NPP) on 30 constituencies, Janata Dal-Secular (13), Janata Dal-United (17) and the Al India Party (AIP) has fielded a single candidate. There are also 17 independents in the fray in the assembly polls.

Altogether 10 female candidates are in the fight in the assembly polls with Congress fielding the highest number of four, followed by BJP in three constituencies, one each by JD(U) and Peoples Party of Arunachal (PPA) and a lone Independent, Darang said.

Unreserved seat Bordumsa-Diyun has the highest record of 10 candidates locking horns to win the battle of ballots. A total of 12 candidates, including one female, are in the fray for the two Lok Sabha seats in the state.

In the Western Parliamentary seat, there are seven candidates while in the Eastern seat there are a total of five nominees. A total of 7,94,162 voters, including 4,01,601 women, would exercise their franchise in the April 11 simultaneous polls in 2,202 polling stations spread across the state. There are also 3000 odds physically challenged voters in the state. This time, there are also 11 polling stations in the state that will exclusively be for women.

There are 518 remote polling stations in the state where polling parties would travel by foot. In 14 polling stations spread across Kra Daadi, Upper Subansiri and Anjaw districts, the chopper will be pressed to ferry men and materials for conducting polling, Darang said.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has appointed 26 General Observers, 20 Expenditure Observers and two police observers to oversee the poll process. So far police along with Static Surveillance Team and Flying squads appointed by the ECI so far has seized cash amounting to two crore 73 lakhs with the highest amount of 74 lakhs in Papum Pare district along with 89,798 bottles of liquor, Darang added.

Simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly elections will be held in Arunachal Pradesh on April 11. The counting of votes will be taken up for both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections will be taken up on May 23, 2019.