NET Bureau

Even as the NDA swept through the country in a wave of victories on 23rd May, the lone Lok Sabha parliamentary seat from Nagaland state saw an intensely close battle between the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) and the Indian National Congress (INC), with the former emerging winner at the last hours of counting.
The NDPP’s Tokheho Yepthomi was declared as the eventual winner by a margin of 16,344 votes against his closest competitor, veteran Congress leader KL Chishi who led the counting for the most part of the day. As counting ended, Yephtomi registered 5,00,510 votes while Chishi got 4,84,166 votes. Others in the fray included the NPP’s Hayithung Tungoe (14997 votes) and independent candidate Dr MM Thromwa Konyak (4620 votes). Meanwhile, 2064 votes were cast under the None of the Above (NOTA) category.

In an election campaign which was dominated by debates regarding the Citizenship Amendment Bill and the Naga political issue, the NDPP’s victory margin of 16,344 was however considerably less when compared to their last win. In the 2018 bye-election to the Lok Sabha, Yepthomi had comfortably won by a margin of over one lakh votes.
Meanwhile, Chief Electoral Officer, Abhijit Sinha in a press conference stated that counting went ahead smoothly and the respective AROs counted each of the assembly segments sequentially.
The counting for the Parliamentary Constituency concluded at around 7:30 pm.
Sinha thanked the RO, all the AROs and all the election-related officers and staff throughout the state for ensuring the conduct of the entire counting process in a smooth and efficient manner.

Source: The Morung Express