CEC treks 18 km to Uttarakhand’s remote polling booths

Chamoli: Chief Election Commissioner Rajeev Kumar on Friday trekked about 18 kilometres to some of Uttarakhand’s most remote polling booths in the district of Chamoli to assess the challenges faced by poll officials in some of the more inaccessible parts of the hilly state.

Kumar visited Dumak and Kalgoth village, where he interacted with both villagers and polling parties. “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,”

The Dumak and Kalgoth polling stations are both parts of the Badrinath Assembly constituency.

“On reaching the village, CEC was greeted with enthusiasm by villagers. He said that through this trek he wants to motivate polling officials who travel through tough terrains and also encourage the villagers to vote,” a tweet shared on the Election Commission’s official handle read.

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.

Earlier this week, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Dhami won the recently-held Champawat bypoll by a margin of over 55,000 votes.