IAF starts flying polling teams to booths deep inside Bastar’s forests
There are 1,957 polling stations in Bastar Lok sabha constituency, of which 590 are classified as hypersensitive centres.
BASTAR: The Indian Air Force (IAF) on Tuesday started the exercise to ferry polling personnel through helicopters to polling stations deep inside the Maoist-hit Bastar Lok Sabha constituency where voting will be held on April 19, people familiar with the matter said.
A senior police officer said 75 of the 150 polling teams to be flown into the interior areas have been sent on Tuesday. The remaining are likely to be sent on Wednesday.
In all, more than one lakh security personnel have been engaged for deployment in Bastar for polling. There are 1,957 polling stations in the constituency, of which 590 are classified as hypersensitive centres.
Officials said the total number of polling stations in the constituency has increased by 118 over the 2019 figure. The official added that the process to dispatch EVMs and polling parties for stations in sensitive areas of Bijapur and Sukma districts has started.
“A total of 245 polling booths have been set up for general elections in Bijapur district and of them, 99 booths in interior areas have been relocated (to safer places),” Bijapur collector Anurag Pandey said.
Elections to the 11 Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh will be held in three phases on April 19, April 26 and May 7.
Bastar, which had been the hotbed of Maoist activities, will vote on April 19. In the second phase, Mahasamund, Rajnandgaon and Kanker (ST), which have a presence of Maoists, will vote on April 26. The remaining seven seats - Raipur, Durg, Bilaspur, Raigarh (ST), Korba, Janjgir-Champa (SC) and Surguja (ST) - will go to the polls in the third phase on May 7.
The IAF flew 404 sorties with eight MI-17 choppers for six days for the Chhattisgarh state elections last year to deploy and bring back 853 polling team members in five districts of Bastar division – Sukma, Bijapur, Kanker, Dantewada and Narayanpur.
An official at the chief electoral officer’s office earlier said helicopters would be used to ferry polling personnel for 167 polling booths in Bastar, Kanker and Mahasamund. As per the plan, 919 polling personnel would be flown to 156 polling stations in Bastar constituency while 84 personnel to nine booths in Kanker seat and two in Gariaband area of Mahasamund seat, he said
