Air Force MI-17 chopper airlifted polling officials from four remote stations

Polling teams for conducting elections in four remote polling stations of Arunachal Pradesh have been airlifted from Miao to Vijoynagar, election office sources said here Friday. The Indian Air Force MI-17 helicopter transported the team members in two sorties on Thursday for conducting elections at Ramnagar, Gandhigram, Vijoynagar and Two-Hut polling stations.

Arunachal Pradesh will vote for Lok Sabha and Assembly polls simultaneously on April 11. The four polling stations fall under Miao assembly constituency and the Arunachal East parliamentary seat.

Each team has one presiding officer, four polling officers, one attendant and two policemen with four sets of EVMs and VVPATs, state nodal officer Lod Takkar said. Miao and Vijoynagar are about 163 km apart with no road connectivity and the journey takes six days by foot.

Three of the teams will stay in Vijoynagar till April 10 and then undertake a foot march for their respective polling stations. It will take one to three hours for the polling personnel to reach the polling stations, Takkar said. The team bound for Gandhigram will leave on April 9 and embark on an eight-hour journey by foot, he added.

While Ramnagar polling station has 252 voters, Gandhigram booth has 1,338 voters, Vijoynagar 8,65 voters and Two-Hut has 726 voters respectively. Eight polling teams for Tali assembly constituency in Kurung Kumey district were also scheduled to begin their journey on Thursday but were thwarted by weather conditions. Another attempt to airlift them would be made on Friday and if it fails, the polling officials would have to walk for three to four days to reach the polling booths, Takkar added.

(With inputs from agencies.)