By IANS,
Guwahati : From using elephants to helicopters and trekking for up to four days to reach polling stations, election officials in India’s geographically isolated northeastern region Thursday conducted the vote in 10 of the 14 parliamentary seats.
“Conducting elections in the northeast has always been a major challenge as there are polling stations located in very remote areas involving trekking of up to four days. In some places porters were used to carry poll materials, besides on elephant backs and even helicopters,” an election official said.
In Assam and Meghalaya, elephants were used to carry poll personnel and materials, with five booths in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district involving a 40-km trek through an area inhabited by wild Asiatic elephants.
“In Meghalaya, we were forced to use tamed elephants to ward off wild herds of pachyderms in some areas with over 200 polling booths, mostly in the Tura parliamentary constituency marked ‘sensitive’ for fear of attacks by wild elephants,” the official said.
Polling stations located at the highest altitudes include Thinghbu (altitude 12,148 feet) and Mago (12,248 feet) and Luguthan (13,157 feet), which are snow bound and located on the Sino-Indian border in Arunachal Pradesh.
Four polling stations in Arunachal Pradesh have three voters each and many polling parties in Tawang, Kurung, Upper Subansiri, and Dibang valley have reached their destinations on foot after walking for three to four days from the nearest motorable point.
“The first big challenge for our officials is to reach the voting stations on time and conduct the vote. The second biggest challenge is to return to the nearest district headquarter with the voting machines safely,” the official said.
“Communication is a big problem, as we don’t really know in full details about the polling percentage due to poor network� it would take time to know whether the voting stations with three voters each had cast their ballot or not,” the official said.
But amid the immense difficulties, voting took place Thursday peacefully in the northeast.
Voting was held in three parliamentary seats of Silchar, Karimganj, and Autonomous District in Assam, two seats each in Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya, and one seat each in Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram.
An estimated 7.45 million voters were eligible to exercise their franchise in the first phase of elections in the six of the seven northeastern states. The electoral fortunes of 72 candidates are to be decided in Thursday’s vote.