Assam goes to polls amid tight security
Assam goes to polls amid tight security
Guwahati: The Indo-Bangla border along Assam has been sealed and tight security put in place for elections to eleven out of 14 parliamentary constituencies in the state, which will decide the fate of 121 candidates during the second phase of general elections on Thursday.
An official said the border has been sealed along Dhubri while more than 50,000 police and para-military personnel were deployed in the constituencies with the army being readied to be used as stand-by.
Security was at an all time high with patrolling on both land and river being intensified, they said, adding deployment has been made according to Election Commission guidelines.
A 14,708,852 strong electorate, including 7,583,085 male and 7,125,767 female voters, will exercise their franchise in 15,772 polling booths out of which 349 have been identified as hyper-sensitive, 2,058 as very sensitive and 5,530 as sensitive.
Polling personnel have started leaving for polling booths from Wednesday and in some areas elephants, boats, bullock carts and tractors are also being used to transport both polling material and personnel, sources said.
The run-up to the second phase of polls in the state was marked by relatively less violence though five militants were killed in Sonitpur district and clashes between rival parties were reported from Kokrajhar during the last few days.
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