Ballot box for presidential poll arrives in Arunachal

Itanagar: Preparations for the July 18 presidential election in Arunachal Pradesh are going on in full swing with all system being monitored thoroughly, a senior official at the State Assembly Secretariat informed here on Thursday.

The ballot box for the poll, which arrived here on Wednesday from New Delhi amidst tight security, is being kept in the makeshift strong room of the Assembly, Assembly secretary K Habung informed.

The strong room was sealed and the sealing process video-graphed as instructed by the Election Commission of India (EC) with the State police team engaged to guard the room 24x7.

Assembly additional secretary Tadar Meena, who is also the assistant returning officer (ARO), and under secretary Longman Ronrang, reached Delhi on Tuesday to receive the ballot box and election-related materials.

"During the transportation, it was ensured that the ballot box flew on a separate ticket beside the seat of the officer transporting the materials under personal supervision. The State Director General of Police was requested to depute police personnel for pilot-escort duty on Wednesday from Mohanbari Airport (Dibrugarh) to the Legislative Assembly Secretariat here," Habung said.

The entire movement from Mohanbari to Itanagar was video-graphed and recorded by the State department of public relations and Doordarshan as per EC guidelines, Habung added.

The presidential election would be held on July 18 and counting of votes would be held on July 21.

In Arunachal Pradesh, the ruling BJP has 48 MLAs in the 60-member Assembly while, the Opposition Congress has four members, National People's Party (NPP) (4), JD(U) has one besides three Independents.

The four NPP MLAs, including the lone JD(U) member along with the three Independents are supporting the candidature of Draupadi Murmu.

Arunachal Pradesh has two Lok Sabha MPs - Union Law and Justice Minister Kiren Rijiju and Tapir Gao and one member of the Upper House, Nabam Rebia.

While the total vote value of individual MP is 700, the vote value of one MLA is eight in the State, Habung informed.

The Northeastern State has a total vote value of 2,100 from the three MPs, while the vote value of all the 60 MLAs is 480.

While BJP has a total vote value of 2,484, including the three MPs, NPP and Opposition Congress has 32 each, JDU (8) and the Independent MLAs have 24 votes value.

The BJP presidential candidate is expected to secure 2,584 votes and the total value of votes expected in favour of Jaswant Sinha is 32.

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