Photo : APImphal: The first phase of the Manipur Assembly elections will be held today in five districts – Imphal East, Imphal West, Bishnupur, Churachandpur, and Kangpokpi. The results will be declared on March 10.Voting will commence at 7 am and will continue till 4 pm. Covid-19 positive and under quarantine voters will be permitted to cast their vote at the last hour.According to the State Election Commission, a total of 173 candidates are in the fray for 38 Assembly constituencies.Out of the total candidates, 15 are females while 39 candidates have criminal charges against them. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded 38 candidates, Congress has 35 and Janata Dal United (JDU) has 28.While speaking to media, Chief Electoral Officer of Manipur, Rajesh Agarwal said, “A total of 12,09,439 voters including 5,80,607 male, 6,28,657 female and 175 transgender voters are in Phase-I who will exercise their franchise across 1,721 polling stations.””There is a total of 10,041 PwD electors and 251 centenarian voters in these 38 assembly constituencies,” he added.The high-voltage election campaign in the northeastern state came to an end on Saturday. Polling for the 60-member Manipur Assembly will take place in two phases on February 28 and March 5. As many as 38 seats will go to the polls in the first phase while voting in 22 constituencies will take place in the second phase.The BJP formed the government in Manipur in 2017 with the support of the National People’s Party (NPP), Naga People’s Front (NPF) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). However, this time the BJP decided to go solo and is contesting all 60 seats alone.On the other hand, Congress has formed an alliance of six political parties and named it Manipur Progressive Secular Alliance (MPSA). The coalition partners in MPSA include Congress, Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India (Marxist), Forward Bloc, Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and Janata Dal (Secular).In the 2017 Manipur Assembly elections, Congress emerged as the single largest party winning 28 seats followed by the BJP which settled with 21 seats.The National People’s Party (NPP) and Naga People’s Front (NPF) bagged four seats each while the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) managed to secure only one constituency.BJP bagged 36.28 per cent vote share while Congress received 35.11 per cent of the total vote. Later, BJP stitched a coalition with the NPP, NPF and LJP to form the government under the leadership of Biren Singh.