More than 70% of the 1,365,207 voters turned out for the first phase of the elections to the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) in Assam on Monday. The elections to the 40-seat council have been billed as the “semi-final” before the 2021 Assembly polls, and its outcome could decide the fate of alliances. “By 3:30 pm, about 57% voters had cast their votes across 21 council constituencies in Baksa and Udalguri districts.We expect the final voting figure to be around 75% when the reports from remote centres come in by 9 pm or later,” State Election Commissioner Alok Kumar told The Hindu.Baksa and Udalguri are two of the four districts under the Bodoland Territorial Region governed by the BTC. The other two are Chirang and Kokrajhar where elections to 19 seats would be held on December 10.
The run-up to the BTC elections, the fourth since its creation in 2003, has been unusually peaceful.The voting too was incident-free barring a mild cane-charge outside a booth in Udalguri….