Uttarakhand: Election Commission chief Rajiv Kumar treks 18 km to remote polling booths

Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Friday trekked for 18 kilometers to the remote polling booths of Uttarakhand to assess the challenges faced by polling parties in hilly areas.

Kumar reached Dumak and Kalgoth village, the most remote polling booths of Uttarakhand located in Chamoli district.

The Chief Election Commissioner said that through this trek he wants to motivate polling officials who travel through tough terrains and also encourage the villagers to vote.

"Polling parties have to walk three days to reach here. I wanted to visit here to understand the challenges faced by the polling personnel during elections," he said.

Further, Kumar said that he would be visiting more such remote polling booths to understand the requirements.

"I will be visiting several remote polling booths starting from here and try to fulfill the requirements of voters in these areas," he said.

The Dumak and Kalgoth polling stations are a part of the Badrinath Assembly constituency.

The CEC plans to visit several more remote polling booths to understand the needs of the voters and to encourage them to cast their ballot.

ECI guidelines say no voter should be more than 2 km away from a polling station. This means that in densely populated swathes of the country, such as the state of Uttar Pradesh, the distribution of polling stations tends to follow a similar pattern to population density.

Clusters of stations in major cities and towns are evident, along with populated road networks. Rivers and sparsely populated, rugged terrain or jungle show as empty space.

Many locations are often in isolated areas with few facilities. More than 80,000 stations surveyed by the ECI lacked mobile connectivity, and nearly 20,000 were located in forest or semi-forest areas, according to data released in 2018.