Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Nov 13: The soldiers deployed in Siachen Glacier, the highest battlefield of the world, are this time getting ready for different kind of battle to make optimum use of their ‘unique weapon’. With this, they would give a loud and clear message to all the countrymen that battle is battle and there must be a desire to contribute 100 percent.
Like in different areas particularly in Ladakh region, where they are guarding the borders of the country from enemies and deployed for other defense duties, the role of troops of Ladakh Scouts would be of immense importance in this battle too for deciding the winner and the loser.
Earlier, they were not much familiar to the technicalities of this battle resulting into their meager contribution in deciding the winner and loser but this time they are armed with all the vital information to make their presence felt discernibly.
This fight of its own kind is the forthcoming battle of ballots whereby next Legislative Assembly and new Government would be decided by the electorates to which the troops of Ladakh Scouts are important part for being the residents of Leh district, where elections to two Assembly segments would be held on November 25, 2014.
Ladakh Scouts, whose troops are mainly deployed in the tough terrain region, has 4000 voters for two Assembly segments of Leh and Nubra. Keeping in view the total number of electorates for both the constituencies this number is sufficient enough to decide the fate of any contesting candidate. But this number was not making any major difference mainly because of the procedural mistakes relating to filing up of postal ballots.
This can be gauged from the fact that in the recently held Lok Sabha elections, out of these 4000 electorates only 2000 cast votes through postal ballots and shockingly only 865 were accepted by the election authorities due to technical errors in the ballots.
Keeping this in view, the District Election Officer (DEO), Leh, Simrandeep Singh decided to act as a mentor for such a large number of troops belonging to the district so as to facilitate them in overcoming the mistakes during the forthcoming battle of ballots for the State Legislative Assembly.
Accordingly, he discussed the issue with the Commanding Officers of all the units of the Ladakh Scouts and finally started campaign to educate them about filing postal ballots correctly under Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) programme of the Election Commission of India. Apart from holding awareness campaign in different units of Ladakh Scouts stationed in the peripheral areas of Leh, Mr Singh also visited two different battalions of Ladakh Scouts under Siachen Brigade yesterday.
One of the sessions was held at Nubra valley while as the another one was organized in the Southern Sector of Siachen Glacier. He became the first officer from the civil administration, who ever visited any sector of the Siachen Glacier with the sole objective of ensuring that troops successfully make contribution in the battle of ballots.
The District Election Officer flew in an Army chopper to address the glacier regiment and gave a detailed power point presentation to the soldiers. Each and every troop of Ladakh Scouts, to whom the District Election Officer interacted gave apt attention to the presentation as they expressed their desire to play key role in deciding the winner and loser in this battle.
Unlike the past practice, the Commanding Officers of various units of the Ladakh Scouts have assured the District Election Officer that they would hold similar trainings for those soldiers who are at forward locations so that no one is devoid of the benefit of the training. All the Ladakh Scouts regiments have already made arrangements to ensure that all soldiers vote in the coming Aelections through postal ballots.
“The Commanding Officers have conveyed to us that they would dedicate one or two days especially to ensure 100% voting by the service voters”, District Election Officer, Simrandeep Singh said when contacted, adding that the first of its kind initiative was taken to ensure that those soldiers, who are protecting the borders of the country, don’t remain deprived of their democratic right.
When asked, he said that postal ballots for the service voters of Ladakh Scouts and those in other wings of the Army and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) have already been distributed and postal ballots would be received before 8 am on December 23 for counting.
It is pertinent to mention here that 72 kilometres long and varying in width from 2 to 8 kilometre, the Siachen Glacier lies lapped in the world’s most forbidding mountainous region that make up the northwestern extremity of India. Forming part of the Karakoram Range beyond Ladakh in the Jammu and Kashmir State, it occupies some 10,000 square kilometres at heights rising from 12,000 to 23,000 feet above sea level.
Follow our WhatsApp channel