People in Assam electoral rolls can vote

Guwahati, March 11 (IANS) Allaying fears that people in Assam whose names did not appear in the final draft of the NRC cannot vote in the Lok Sabha polls, Assam's Chief Electoral Officer Mukesh Sahu on Monday said that those who figure in the electoral rolls can vote.

There was intense speculation that the 40 lakh people whose names did not appear in the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) draft published by the government last year would be barred from voting.

Assam will go to polls to elect 14 Lok Sabha members in three phases (April 11, 18 and 23). The vote count will be held on May 23.

Sahu told a press conference here that there were 2,17,60,604 eligible voters in Assam as of now, including 1,06,27,822 females.

"The number of voters is likely to increase as the process for inclusion of the names in electoral rolls is still on. There are 7,06,489 first-time voters this time between the age group of 18 to 19 years," he said.

He said there will be 28,143 polling stations in the state, including 3,663 classified as "hyper sensitive" and 1,913 as "critical" -- meaning they are prone to violence.

"The vulnerability assessment is, however, a continuous process and a final list will be prepared later to ascertain the sensitive, hyper sensitive and critical polling stations," he said.

Five Lok Sabha seats -- Tezpur, Kaliabar, Dibrugarh, Jorhat and Lakhimpur -- will go to polls in the first phase.

Karimganj, Silchar, Diphu, Mangaldai and Nagaon will see voting in the second phase and polling will take place in Dhubri, Kokrajhar, Barpeta and Guwahati in the final phase.