Six Arunachal officials travel two days to open booth for a single voter
- Apr 12, 2019,
- Updated Apr 12, 2019, 1:43 AM IST
Guwahati, April 12, 2019:
It takes about five million officials to pull off the election in the world’s largest democracy and six of them went to a remote polling station in Arunachal to make necessary voting arrangements for a single voter!
In an incredible tale from India’s incredible NorthEast, six election officials traveled for two days - first by bus, and then they trekked 6-kilometers up the hills, to set up a polling station in Tibet-bordering Malogam village.
By 9:30 pm on Thursday, Malogam village in Arunachal’s Anjaw district had achieved a 100% voter turnout. The sole voter in the village, Sokela Tayang (39) had arrived in the village’s tin-shed polling station and cast her vote for both the assembly and Lok Sabha elections which were being held simultaneously in the frontier state. Although the 2011 census recorded five residents and one household in Malogam village, Tayang is the only registered voter there.
Though the election was over in a jiffy, the process of setting up the polling station had taken considerable effort and the five-member election team headed by junior engineer Gammar Bam had set out early on Wednesday to reach the remote location.
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When they set out on Wednesday, Bam’s team included Rupak Tamang from the Tezu office of the deputy director of school education, Sonumlum Tindiya from the office of the assistant deputy commissioner of Hayuliang and Titenso Yun, a “multi-purpose worker” with a primary healthcare sub-center in Chipru village in Anjaw. There was also an attendant and a guard.
This incident is truly a wonderful display of duty during the carnival of democracy and also a beautiful example of exercising one's democratic right. The election for two Lok Sabha seats and 60 Assembly seats was held yesterday in Arunachal Pradesh.