Airlifting of refreshments, tough terrain, booth locations make Leh polling unique

Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, May 7: Though the voters of Leh shared similar aspects of voting with the electorates in rest of the country, there were some unique features, which made polling process in the cold desert quite different and interesting.  These distinctive features are not only attention grabbing for the electorates in different parts of the country but also for many officers, who were involved in the election process.
An interesting aspect of the polling process was that even jawans of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China, who otherwise do not believe in democracy, witnessed battle of ballots in Demchok area from their territory. They keenly watched how the people elect their representatives in the world’s largest democracy.
Demchok is one of the areas of Leh where the Chinese Army adopts aggressive postures and resorts to incursions after regular intervals. However, during the polling today there was no adverse reaction from the PLA and voting in the otherwise highly volatile area passed off peacefully.
Unlike other parts of the country, for a polling station in Nubra Assembly segment the six member polling staff had to conduct long trekking to facilitate 24 voters to exercise their democratic right. To reach this polling station situated in Government Primary School at Fastan, the polling party had to conduct five hour long trekking after conducting 9 hour long journey in a vehicle.
Similarly, to facilitate 70 voters to cast votes in a polling station namely Skumpta, the polling personnel had to be taken to first destination by helicopter and then they covered the rest of the distance in seven hours that too on foot.
Moreover, 10 air sorties had to be conducted for airlifting men and material to facilitate 811 voters to cast their votes and an expenditure of Rs 20 lakh (Rs 2 lakh per sortie) was incurred. This means Election Commission of India spent Rs 2466 per electorate.
In this way, the Election Commission has added several feathers to its cap and conveyed that it believes in facilitating each and every voter in every remotest corner of the country to exercise their democratic right.
Another interesting aspect was related to Model Polling Station in the Leh town, where arrangements for entertainment and refreshment for the voters were made by the District Election Officer on the directions of Election Commission.
As Leh’s road connectivity with rest of the country remains cut off, the potato and cabbage for the ‘Pakodas’ to be served as refreshment had to brought in Indian Air Force chopper from Chandigarh. Though the IAF airlifted the refreshment material free of the cost, money was paid for the purchase of potato and cabbage.
Gaik polling station near Leh was having the lowest number of voters. To facilitate 10 voters to cast their votes a polling party of 6 persons had to be deployed. Similarly, for Ezang Sumdha polling station, which also falls in Leh Assembly segment, six polling personnel along with Electronic Voting Machine had to be deployed to ensure that all the 12 voters exercise their democratic right.
One polling station namely Chilam was having equal number of male and female voters—134 each while as Kotsa polling station had 199 female and only five male voters because this polling station was established for the female monks and five men engaged in extending different services to them.
A team of Robin Roy Films, which is preparing documentary on elections for the Discovery Channel, captured some of these interesting aspects in cameras. The team went to several places where either voters or the polling parties had to conduct trekking for the polling purpose.

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