Chhattisgarh Assembly elections: 40 Polling stations to setup for villagers to cast vote for first time in Bastar

Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh's naxal-hit Sukma, Bijapur, Narayanpur, Bastar and Dantewada are going to be very special as the Election Commission will be establishing polling centres at villages where the centre has never opened.

Bastar: Hundreds of villagers in insurgency-hit Bastar division will get the opportunity to exercise their voting rights for the first time in the Chhattisgarh assembly elections that are slated to be held this year, as the poll body is going to set up polling centres at 40 villages for the maiden time.

Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh’s naxal-hit Sukma, Bijapur, Narayanpur, Bastar and Dantewada are going to be very special as the Election Commission will be establishing polling centres at villages where the centre has never opened.Earlier, these villages were inaccessible and Naxals were dominated in the region. The outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) used to dictate that whosoever will cast a vote will be punished. Due to adverse circumstances, villagers of these areas were deprived of exercising their voting rights.

---

Moreover, several senior citizens in these villages have never cast a vote while several have not exercised their franchise in the last 15 years due to naxalism.

In the last four years, over 63 camps of security forces have been established in the insurgency-hit Bastar division and it brings a positive shift in the region, Bastar Range Inspector General of Police (IG) Sundarraj P said.