Page 272 - Leap of Faith Vol - 2

Leap of Faith Journey of Indian Elections

Elections in Tripura witnessed high turnout. There were
large number of voters waiting to exercise their franchise A riverine polling station in Kamsing village in West
at the polling station at 4 PM, when the voting officially Jaintia Hills district of Meghalaya illustrates Election
closed in the north eastern state. They were issued Commission of India's resolve of actualising ‘No Voter
tokens as per rule, so that the voting actually continued to be Le Behind’. e village, which survives on betel
beyond official hours. The final voter turnout rose to nut farming and solar electricity, has the farthest and
89.95 percent, including 2.19 percent polled through non-motorable polling station of Meghalaya. Situated
postal ballot. The polling was completely violence free. 69 km from district headquarters in Jowai, and 44 km
Central Armed Police Force was deployed at each of the from sub-district headquarter (tehsildar's office)
3,337 polling stations. Micro observers were present at Amlarem, the village is approachable only by small
2,505 polling stations. The use of e-Atlas application countrymade boats. It takes an hour long cruise to reach
developed by North East Space Application Agency was the village along Indo-Bangladesh border. A polling
used to monitor static surveillance teams, flying squads, station was set up in the village for its 35 voters, 20 male
civil and police officers involved in election management. and 15 female, drawn from 23 families that inhabit the
village. e polling personnel had to wear life jackets,
Wider involvement of agencies resulted in stupendous
and were accompanied by a few divers.
increase in seizure of cash, liquor, drugs, precious metals,
and freebies. The value of seizure was pegged at
INR 44.67 crore, a 25 times increase over INR 1.79 crore in
the previous elections in 2018.
The Commission's emphasis on meticulous planning,
exhaustive reviews with Chief Secretaries/DGs of Police
of neighbouring states and other enforcement agencies
ensured smooth conduct of violence-free, fair and
inclusive elections in Tripura. Since there was gap of a
fortnight between the polling and counting, the
administration went the extra mile to ensure that peace
prevailed in the intervening period. A lynx eyed vigil was
kept on the situation, and leaders of different political
parties were involved in the process.

Nagaland (estd.1963) was India's first experiment with
creation of small states. Recognised as the sixteenth state
of the Union, it was a point of departure from the linguistic
basis of state-forming prevalent then. The state was a result
of reorganisation of Assam, a process that subsequently ‘Wheels of Democracy’ was conceived as an extensive voter
led to the formation of Meghalaya and Mizoram. awareness campaign in Meghalaya

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