Indian Air Force to the rescue of Arunachal Polls

The Congress-led UPA government’s tall and false claim of uniform development across the country has been exposed with the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. In the state of Arunachal Pradesh, as a result of inadequate roads and accessibility, the election commission has got in touch with the Indian Air Force (IAF) and Pawan Hans Helicopter service for support in transportation of people as well as goods.

Interestingly, in this remote state, the Malogaon polling station under Hayuliang in Anjaw district has only two voters. Eight polling stations in the state have less than 10 voters; 20 have less than 20 voters; and, 105 polling stations have less than 50 electors. The C Sector polling station at Itanagar has the highest number of 1,650 voters.

Chief Electoral Officer for Arunachal Pradesh, Chandra Bhusan Kumar told Hans India that 90 air sorties in the state will be made for transporting men and materials (onward and backward journey) to various remote and inaccessible polling stations in the State for the April 9 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

The Chief Electoral Officer said, “The process of air sorties has began today with the departure of four teams of polling officials including security personnel to remote Vijaynagar circle in Changlang district to manage four polling stations consisting 2,900 electorates.”

Vijaynagar, one of the remotest circles under Miao sub–division is located at a distance of 157 kilometres from the sub-divisional headquarters.

Kumar said, “The circle which has no surface communication, is approachable only by foot march which takes five to six days.” He said, besides Pawan Hans choppers, the Indian Air Force would provide air sorties to the Commission. The IAF will provide one air ambulance on the polling day to manage medical emergencies. Retrieval for any emergency will not be a problem for us as we have arranged adequate medical facilities and other logistics in all the remote and inaccessible polling booths.” He added, “We have taken all precautionary measures for the polling teams including medical, rations, wireless and other logistics. The teams from 664 remote and inaccessible polling booths will return back on April 11 next.”

Disclosing that all preparation for a free and fair elections are nearing completion, Kumar informed that 1,358 digital cameras have been installed to check unfair means during polling while, in 124 polling stations webcasting facility would be available.