This time the assembly elections in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh will be special because the people of 40 Naxal affected villages here will get a chance to vote for the first time in 40 years. Earlier, these Naxal-affected villages were so dangerous that it was impossible to conduct safe voting. These are 40 highly Naxal-affected villages in Basratar where polling stations will be built for voting after 40 years. On Saturday, at least 120 polling stations were being set up in these villages. Chhattisgarh will go to assembly polls in two phases on November 7 and 17.
In the last five years, more than 60 security force camps have been established in these highly Naxal-affected areas. After the establishment of these voting camps, the process of area domination has been going on continuously in these areas and now, according to the police, these areas are safe for the electoral process. For this, the Election Commission has also started the process of training the polling parties.
Security arrangements have been tightened
While speaking about the preparation of security forces for the upcoming elections to be held on November 7 in Bastar, Inspector General of Police (IGP) of Bastar division Sundarraj P said that the security forces will ensure that the election process is conducted in an orderly and peaceful manner. We are trying our best to get it done.
IGP Sundarraj said, "As everyone knows, in the first phase of Chhattisgarh assembly elections, voting is to be held in all the seven districts of Bastar division on November 7. All security arrangements and administration preparations are going on for the same and we are fully prepared for the elections. We are trying our best to conduct the process in a systematic manner and we have full hope that this time all the arrangements in the election process will be quite good." He further said that efforts are being made to re-establish some polling stations which were closed or shifted due to the Naxalite problem.
Polling stations are being rebuilt
Sundarraj said, “We will see a significant increase in security in 2023 compared to the 2018 elections. In view of the same, there are some polling stations which in the past might have been closed due to Maoist problem or shifted to the nearest police station Efforts are being made to re-establish all those polling stations in those villages. Around 120 polling stations have been identified, which again have to be manned by the entire district administration and police due to the security camp in the village. It is being established in the same village."
He said, "Our effort will be to reduce the distance between voters and polling stations so that maximum number of voters can go to polling stations and cast their vote. All types of election related proceedings will be done in a very systematic manner so that The election process should be conducted very well and systematically on November 7."
"These new polling stations will be narrating the story about the triumph of 'ballot over bullet' to the future generations in Bastar region," he said.
