Over 6.75 lakh first-time youth voters in Assam polls

Over 6.75 lakh youths will cast their votes for the first time in Assam in the forthcoming Assembly elections due in April.
"In the age group of 18-19 years, there will be 6.76 lakh voters. They will be the first-time voters in the state," Assam Chief Electoral Officer Vijayendra said at a press conference here.
The state with 126 constituencies will have a total of 1.98 crore voters, of which 95 lakh are women, he said.
"Of the total number of voters, 31 per cent are under 30 years and 76 per cent are under 50 years...," Vijayendra said.
Earlier during the day, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi said Assam will go to polls in two phases, on April 4 and April 11, while counting of votes will be held on May 19.

The notification for the first phase will be out on March 11 and last date for filing of nominations will be on March 18, while a candidate can withdraw the nomination till March 21.

In the second phase, the notification will be issued on March 14, while the last date for filing of nominations will be March 21 and last date for withdrawing the same will be March 26.
"In total, we will have 24,888 polling stations. In the first phase of polling in 65 constituencies, elections will be held in 12,190 booths in 8,887 locations, while there will be 12,698 poll stations in 8,169 places in 61 constituencies in second phase," Vijayendra said.

(Reopens CAL14)
Zaidi said the Election Commission has identified 3,663 polling stations as hyper-sensitive, 7,629 as sensitive and 1,913 as critical.
"The security assessment has been done of all the polling stations. We will have around 60,000 security personnel for poll related duties," Vijayendra said.
The Election Commission has photo electoral roll for 98.60 per cent voters, while 93.85 per cent have been issued Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC), he said.
Vijayendra said 10 constituencies consisting of over 2,300 booths will be equipped with Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system, which will give a receipt printed by an electronic voting machine showing the voter his/her vote correctly.

The Election Commission will also have 76 general observers, 46 expenditure observers, five police observers and 3,197 micro observers, besides conducting videography in 2,549 and web casting in 865 polling booths in Assam.
Talking about expenditure limit, Vijayendra said the cap has been fixed at Rs 28 lakh per candidate per constituency.
For smoothly conducting the entire exercise, around 1.65 lakh persons will be involved and around Rs 130 crore will be spent to elect the representatives, he said.
Vijayendra also said around four helicopters, 24,700 vehicles, 600 boats and 10 elephants will be used during the elections.