There are 22.26 lakh voters in Meghalaya eligible to cast their vote for the future of the nation at the Lok Sabha 2024 elections.
Meghalaya will go to the polls in the first phase of voting on April 19 for two seats – Shillong and Tura.
Shillong constituency has 14 lakh voters and Tura 8.26 lakh. Women have a slight edge in terms of numbers, making up 11.27 lakh compared to 10.99 lakh men. However, there is a difference in the Shillong and Tura seats in this regard, with Tura having more men than women (4.16 lakh compared to 4.10 lakh), while Shillong has fewer men than women voters (6.84 lakh compared to 7.16 lakh). There are also three registered third gender voters – two in Shillong constituency and one in Tura constituency.
These voters will cast their vote at one of 3,512 polling booths (2,288 in Shillong, 1,224 in Tura) spread across Meghalaya. Of these, 477 have been deemed “vulnerable” (207 in Shillong, 270 in Tura) and 29 “critical” (21 in Shillong, eight in Tura).
There are also 187 near the inter-state border (much of it disputed) with Assam and 140 near the international border with Bangladesh.
Sixty polling stations (one in each Assembly constituency) have been dubbed ‘model polling stations’. There are 88 polling stations that will be managed by women (62 in Shillong, 26 in Tura), 10 by people with disabilities (all in Shillong) and 37 by youth (17 in Shillong, 20 in Tura).
Senior citizens and the disabled are eligible to vote from home instead of having to travel to and vote at a polling station in person. There are 10,180 eligible senior citizen voters (8,173 in Shillong, 2,007 in Tura) and 11,720 eligible disabled voters (8,515 in Shillong, 3,205 in Tura) but only 6,106 have opted for home voting (3,424 in Shillong, 2,682 in Tura).
