EC plans to use choppers to ferry personnel, EVMs to 167 booths in 3 Chhattisgarh LS seats

The Election Commission has planned to use helicopters to ferry electronic voting machines and polling personnel to 167 booths in three Lok Sabha constituencies of Chhattisgarh in view of the Maoist threat as well as geographical location, an official said on Thursday.

Elections to the 11 Lok Sabha seats in the state will be held in three phases on April 19, April 26 and May 7 and votes will be counted on June 4.

The Naxal-hit Bastar (ST) seat will go to polls on April 19, while Mahasamund, Rajnandgaon and Kanker (ST), where some pockets are affected by Left Wing Extremism, will witness voting on April 26. The remaining seven seats, namely Raipur, Durg, Bilaspur, Raigarh (ST), Korba, Janjgir-Champa (SC) and Surguja (ST), will vote on May 7.

''We have decided to airlift 1,003 polling staff at 167 booths in the first two phases. For this we have sought 10 helicopters from the Election Commission of India'', Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Shailabh Sahu told PTI here.

''As per the plan, 919 polling personnel will be sent to 156 polling stations by helicopters in Bastar Lok Sabha constituency and 84 personnel to nine booths in Kanker LS and two in Gariaband area of Mahasamund LS,'' he said.

This move is due to the Naxal threat and geographical location of the booths, the official added.

In the 2023 assembly polls, the Indian Air Force (IAF) conducted 404 sorties with eight MI-17 choppers for six days to deploy and evacuate 853 polling team members in Sukma, Bijapur, Kanker, Dantewada and Narayanpur districts of Bastar division.

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