November 13 Assam by-polls will see 9L electorates vote in 5 seats

Guwahati, Oct 19: Over 9 lakh voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the upcoming bypolls to five Assam assembly constituencies on November 13, Chief Electoral Officer Anurag Goel said on Friday.

Bypolls to Dholai (SC), Samaguri, Behali, Bongaigaon, and Sidli (ST) were necessitated after the MLAs were elected as MPs in the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year.

Out of the 9,10,665 electorate, there are 4,55,924 women and 4,54,722 men, Goel said at a press conference in Guwahati.

Voting will take place at 1,078 polling stations across the five constituencies, with Sidli (ST) having the highest number of 273 booths, while Behali has the lowest at 154.

Goel said that there are 4,389 voters with physical disabilities and 3,788 above the age of 85.

"The model code of conduct has already come into force and will apply to the entire district where the constituencies are located," he said.

He said that there is sufficient stock of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). The first randomisation of the EVMS is scheduled for Saturday, with a second one on November 1 in the presence of representatives from political parties and candidates. Commissioning will take place from November 4.

Polling will take place from 7 am to 5 pm, but those who enter the booths before the end of polling will still be allowed to vote. Counting will start at 8 am on November 23, beginning with postal ballots.

The bypolls will be held according to pre-delimited constituencies. A delimitation exercise was carried out last year, maintaining the number of Assembly constituencies at 126 and Lok Sabha seats at 14, while revising the nomenclature of one Parliamentary seat and 19 Assembly constituencies.

Poll notification was issued on Friday but no nominations were filed on the first day. The last date of filing of nominations is October 25, scrutiny on October 28 and last date of withdrawal on October 30.

The ruling alliance has decided that the BJP will contest from three seats-Dholai (SC), Behali, and Samaguri, while the AGP will contest from Bongaigaon and UPPL from Sidli (ST).

The seats fell vacant after Dholai (SC) BJP MLA and former minister Parimal Suklabaidya was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Silchar (SC) parliamentary constituency, while his party colleague Ranjit Dutta from Behali won the Sonitpur seat.

NDA's alliance partner AGP's sitting MLA from Bongaigaon, Phanibhushan Choudhury, was elected from Barpeta Lok Sabha seat. Joyanta Basumatary from the United Peoples' Party Liberal (UPPL) was elected from the Kokrajhar (ST) parliamentary constituency. Congress MLA from Samaguri, Rakibul Hussain, won the Dhubri parliamentary seat.