
ITANAGAR, OCT 3: The fate of 168 candidates for 56 Assembly seats and six others for two Lok Sabha seats in Arunachal Pradesh were sealed in the ballot boxes today on the final phase of polling which ended peacefully at 4 pm.
Election office sources said an estimated 55 per cent of the over six lakh electorate exercised their franchise in the simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in 1,741 polling booths.
Four Congress members had already been returned unopposed to the State Assembly. They are: Chief Minister Mukut Mithi Roing, Planning Minister Thupten Tempa Tawang, Irrigation and Flood Control Minister T.L. Rajkumar Khonsa East and Rajesh Tacho Anini. Election office sources said reports from several interior places were yet to be received here. The polling was peaceful and no untoward reports were received from anywhere till now, the sources said. In several polling booths in this capital town, hundreds of voters were seen in queues even after the appointed time was over. The presidingofficers had issued slips and allowed time to cast their votes, sources said. Prominent among those whose fates were sealed in the ballot boxes today are Union Minister of State for Tourism Omak Apang and Member of the dissolved Parliament Wangcha Rajkumar in Arunachal West and Arunachal East Lok Sabha seats respectively.
In all, 28 of the total 33 Cabinet colleagues of Mithi are trying their luck to enter the State Assembly again. Former Chief Minister Gegong Apang is contesting from two Assembly constituencies Tuting-Yingkiong and Liromoba.