With two days left for Lok Sabha polls in Meghalaya, polling personnel led by presiding officers and accompanied by security personnel have gone to various locations in the state, where voting will be held on April 19.
The polling personnel also carried with them electronic voting machines, electoral rolls and other papers.
The rest of the polling personnel will arrive at their respective polling booths tomorrow evening.
Meghalaya has 74 such non-motorable polling stations where polling personnel have to trek for hours. Some can be reached by boat.
Altogether there are 3,512 polling stations in the State. These include 2,288 in Shillong seat and 1,224 in Tura seat.
Chief Electoral Officer, BDR Tiwari informed that polling parties have to go by boat to Kamseng polling station under Amlarem assembly constituency and Kalatek under Shella assembly constituency. Poll officials have to also take an arduous trek over steep mountains and the living root bridges, before trekking down 3,600 steep to Nongriat.
“All the needful arrangements have been made for their stay and that they reach on time,” Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) BDR Tiwari said.
He said that the distance of the polling stations does not matter on how soon the polling officials should leave but factors like road conditions and difficult terrains matters. “Some have to walk several kilometres. So all those criteria have been taken into account in polling stations marked as P-2,” he said.
P-2 booths are remote booths where polling personnel have to depart two days before the polling day as opposed to a single day (P-1,) which is in most of the booths. In the case of P-2 booths there are non-motorable stretches.
Around 40 companies of the Central Armed Police Force have been deployed and the number of polling personnel, including reserve, is around 20,000.
