Guwahati: Silchar heads to the polls this Saturday for its first municipal corporation election. Officials finished distributing election materials on October 2 at the Inter-State Bus Terminus and Inter-State Truck Terminus, which now house the designated strong rooms. Voters will decide the outcome across 40 wards.
The city prepared 303 polling stations to handle the turnout. Authorities deployed 1,212 personnel to manage the process, including staff for 10 all-women stations. Officials have categorized stations as sensitive or highly sensitive. Security is tight. Armed police patrol the high-risk locations to keep the peace.
Cachar District Magistrate Rahul Kumar Gupta and Senior Superintendent of Police Partha Pratim Das briefed the press on these safety measures. A Quick Response Team will remain on standby around the clock to monitor the city and address any trouble immediately. "Armed police personnel have been deployed at highly sensitive polling stations," officials said.
Updated at 3rd October 2026 at 1:48pm
This election marks the formal transition of Silchar from a municipal board to a full municipal corporation. While the new civic body encompasses 42 wards, the BJP already claimed two seats unopposed, narrowing the contest to 40 wards.
Polls opened at 7 am today, October 3, with approximately 2.7 lakh residents eligible to cast their ballots. A total of 131 candidates are fighting for seats across the contested wards, as the city establishes its first governing body under the upgraded municipal system.
Updated at 3rd October 2026 at 9:52pm
Tensions simmer outside the polling booths as local activists demand the release of Kalparnab Gupta, an IIT Bombay research scholar arrested by Cachar police on September 28. Authorities booked the 29-year-old under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for allegedly posting inflammatory content about the RSS and Bajrang Dal on Facebook. A court denied his bail, remanding him to custody until October 9.
Satyajit Gupta, the scholar's father, filed a formal complaint alleging that a mob of 30 people trespassed into his home late on September 27. He claims the group intimidated his family and demanded his son be handed over to police. Civil society leaders, including Pradip Dutta Roy, have condemned the incident as an unconstitutional attack on democratic rights, warning that the silence from officials regarding the trespassing allegations signals a troubling trend for free speech in the region.
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