Thursday, March 27, 2014

126 candidates file nominations for 32 Assembly seats LONE LOK SABHA SEAT ATTRACTS 6 CONTENDERS

GANGTOK, 26 Mar: The process of filing of nomination papers concluded today across the State and as things stand, a total of 132 candidates have filed nominations for the 32 Assembly seats and the lone Lok Sabha seat going to polls in Sikkim. This number could come down with scrutiny scheduled for Thursday, 26 March, and candidates being able to withdrawn nomination papers till 29 March, Saturday.
The lone Lok Sabha seat has received six candidates with SDF, SKM, Congress, BJP, TMC and AAP fielding candidates.
The 12 Assembly constituencies of East Sikkim have attracted seven independent candidates. Amongst the independents, 3 are from Rhenock, 3 from Arithang and 1 from Gnathang-Machong.
The three constituencies of North district have 12 candidates at present - 3 SDF, 4 SKM, 3 Congress, 1 BJP and 1 Independent candidate.
In West district, 32 candidates in all have filed their nominations for the eight assembly constituencies. 8 SDF candidates, 8 SKM, 8 Congress, 6 BJP and 2 TMC candidates have filed their nominations in the district.
The South district saw 26 candidates in all filing their nomination for the 8 constituencies. 8 from SDF, 8 from Congress, 8 from SKM and 2 from TMC.
In 2009, there were 167 contestants in the 32 Assembly constituencies. Of the 167, 106 contestants had forfeited their deposits because of the extremely low number of votes they received.
Polling on 12 April will be held at 538 polling stations spread across 389 polling station locations.
More than half the State’s population is made up of voters. Sikkim, as per Census 2011, has a population of 6,31,498. The number of voters is 3,62,326 electors [as on 3rd January 2014]. Of these, 89,218 voters making up 24.62% of the electorate are in the age-group 18–25 while women constitute 48.45%.
A bulk of the voters are in the 25-40 age-group. This segment constitutes 41% of the electorate at their strength of 1,48,289 voters.
The next age bracket of 40 to 60 year olds has 93,104 voters, making up 25.70% of the electorate. Only 8.17% [31,715] of the electorate is over-60.
The polling, if voters remain true to their track-record, can be expected to be high. The State recorded around 82% voter turnout the last time around in 2009.
In Elections 2009, SDF had secured 67.52% of the votes with Congress coming a distant second with a 28.31% vote-share. SHRP, which has since merged with the Congress, had cornered a 3.54% vote-share .

No comments:

Post a Comment

Readers are invited to comment on, criticise, run down, even appreciate if they like something in this blog. Comments carrying abusive/ indecorous language and personal attacks, except when against the people working on this blog, will be deleted. It will be exciting for all to enjoy some earnest debates on this blog...