Kohima, Jun 20 (IANS): Over 2.76 lakh voters would decide the fate of 523 candidates in the June 26 elections to three municipal councils and 36 town councils in Nagaland in civic polls being held after a gap of 20 years, officials said on Thursday.

State Election Commissioner (SEC) T. John Longkumer said that 670 nominations were submitted and subsequently 79 candidatures were withdrawn while 64 candidates were elected unopposed.

Four nomination papers were rejected during scrutiny.

He said that no candidate is contesting in the town councils in eastern Nagaland, where Eastern Nagaland People’s Organisation (ENPO) gave a vote boycott call in support of their statehood demand for ‘Frontier Nagaland Territory’.

Longkumer, a former Director General of Police of Nagaland, said that a total of 2,76,229 voters, including 1,40,167 women, are eligible to exercise their franchise in the urban bodies poll.

Of the total of 418 wards in the urban civic bodies, 142 wards are reserved for women.

The SEC said that many national and local parties are contesting the elections. These include the BJP, the Congress, the Janata Dal-United, the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), the Naga People’s Front (NPF), the Rising People’s Party, the Republican Party of India-Athawale, and the Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas.

The SEC earlier served a show cause notice to the ENPO, the apex body of seven backward Naga tribes in eastern Nagaland who urged the people to abstain from participating in the civic polls to press for its statehood demand. People in the six districts, which have over four lakh voters, remained indoors on April 19 in polling to the state's sole Lok Sabha constituency, responding to its call.

SEC officials said that 108 companies of state security forces would be deployed to maintain security while 8,100 personnel would be posted to conduct the civic polls.