With the poll day just a day away, Monggar and Nganglam constituencies are all set to elect their new National Assembly representatives. Campaigns have closed and polling officials have been deployed to all the polling stations.
The office of Returning Officer (RO) in Monggar constituency dispatched electronic voting machines and polling officials in all the twenty-two polling stations. Some 200 officials including Police and De-suups are in all five gewogs since Saturday.
“We have done this preparation for quite a long time now. We have already given the refresher course. We have also visited all the polling stations set up two doors in keeping the pandemic situation. All our presiding and polling officers are well trained and they have been already dispatched to their respective polling stations,” said Mani K Ghalay, the Returning Officer of the constituency.
So far, the office of the Returning Officer in Monggar received more than 2,600 conventional postal ballots from within the country. But the office received only 35 from overseas.
“I think it could be because they have to pay for the postal charges. We have contacted the Assistant Returning Officer in Perth and he said he received only 35 postal ballots for two Demkhongs in Monggar and Nganglam. We have issued more than one hundred postal ballots but we received only 35, which is very disappointing,” added Mani Ki Ghalay.
The officials started opening Envelope A of the postal ballots from today. Envelope A contains the voters’ details. The RO opens the envelope to check if the voters have mailed to a proper mailing address among other requirements. The vote count will start tomorrow afternoon.
Mongar constituency has more than 11,000 registered voters.
Over in Nganglam, the office of the Returning Officer dispatched electronic voting machines and polling officials in 13 polling stations in three gewogs yesterday. The office started opening Envelope A of the postal ballots in presence of the two candidates today.
The office received 2,591 postal ballots from a total of 2,665. There are 7,426 eligible voters in Nganglam constituency.
The voting will start tomorrow from 8 AM until 6 PM.
Sonam Tshering and Thinley Dorji
