Satara voters make ‘Bridge’ to reach booth
Facing a tramp through muddy waters to go and cast their ballots in the Maharashtra Assembly elections on Monday, voters in a village in the state's Satara ingeniously built a makeshift bridge of tractor-trolleys to reach the polling booth.
Kambleshwar village in Phaltan taluka was waterlogged due to sporadically heavy rains in the Pune region for the past couple of days, and though the weather improved on Monday when polling began for the 288 Assembly seats, the muddy waters remained a hindrance.
To overcome the situation, the villagers in Kambleshwar, located 71 km east from district headquarters Satara and 232 km from Mumbai, constructed a temporary bridge by putting together six tractor-trollies to take voters to the polling station in a government-run primary school without getting their feet wet. Two polling booth -number 351 and 352 -- were established in the school.
The innovative method of the villagers, facilitated by the state administration, earned quick attention of the Election Commission and its spokesperson took to Twitter to post the image of the bridge being used by the voters. "Despite heavy rains, voters being facilitated by innovative, available means! @ Polling stations 351 and 352. Kambleshwar village Maharashtra @CEO_Maharashtra," Election Commission spokesperson Sheyphali Sharan tweeted.
In another tweet in Hindi, Sharan mentioned that the voters faced waterlogging problem in Kambleshwar village due to rains. "As it was a difficult situation for the villagers to cast their votes due to waterlogging, the administration combined six tractor trolleys to make a bridge to ease out the situation for them," Sharan tweeted.
Some videos, accessed by IANS, showed that polling officers were facilitated tractors to reach the polling station in the village where there was water-logging in front of the school building which consisted polling booths number 351 and 352.
Some presiding officers - responsible for the conduct of the ballot in the polling stations, police personnel and supporting staff took help of villagers' tractors to reach to the polling station in the morning, the video showed.
EVMs and other necessary items being used during the polling were also carried with the help of tractors.
Starting on a low-to-moderate note, voting in Maharashtra picked up as the day progressed, amid repeated appeals to the electorate to step out and vote. As the weather cleared in many parts, people started trickling out individually or with families and queued up at polling stations to vote.