On polling day, at each of the 2023 polling stations across Nagaland, pastors will pray for a “clean election.”
The decision to offer prayers before polling begins is a part of the Clean Election Campaign of the Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC). “The idea to have pastors praying at polling booths came to us after a pastor in Phek district offered prayers at a booth and then stayed at the booth all day in 2008,” Dr. Hovithal Sothu, the convenor of the campaign’s working committee told The Hindu .
It was later found that there was no proxy voting at that particular station. The presence of the pastor pricks the proxy voter’s conscience, Dr. Sothu said.
