Nagaland Assembly election 2018: BJP releases list of 20 candidates

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) on Saturday released a list of 20 candidates for the ensuing General Election to the 13th Nagaland Legislative Assembly.

The Polling on all 60 seats in Nagaland will be held on February 27 while the counting of votes will be done on March 3.

On January 18, the Election Commission of India had announced the polling dates for Assembly elections 2018 in the northeastern states of Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

As for the Nagaland state assembly, the Naga People's Front is currently dominating the House.

Nagaland chief electoral officer Abhijit Sinha had earlier said that the final rolls published has 11,89,264 voters, lower than the electorate size of 11,92,377 enumerated in 2013.

State's Chief Minister TR Zeliang had met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and briefed him about the 'desire' of various civil society organisation and church leaders in Nagaland for a "Solution before Election".

"The assembly election in Nagaland will be held on schedule," Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had assured him.

Various Naga groups had called for deferring the upcoming assembly elections in order to facilitate a solution to the seven-decade-old Naga insurgency.

Nagaland-based civil society groups have demanded the signing of a final peace accord with the insurgent group NSCN-IM before the assembly elections in the state.

Recently, the Naga Hoho, an apex Naga tribal body, had sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's help in postponing the forthcoming Nagaland assembly elections, saying that the vexed insurgency problem should be resolved first.