KRISHNAGIRI: Saving tribals of Bettamugilalam panchayat from taking arduous treks on hilly terrain to exercise their franchise, four new polling booths have been set up for the upcoming Assembly polls.
The polling booths, which are set to come up at Aalapatti, Kadamabakuttai, Kaaligattam and Kottayur Kollai in the panchayat, would save dangerous treks through the forest all the way to Bettamugilalam village dozens of kilometres away. For instance, from Aalapatti and Kadambakuttai, residents had to walk seven and ten kilometres, respectively, to Bettamugilalam village using a shortcut through the forest. Meanwhile, the actual distances on road are in the range of 15 to 40 km.
TNIE had published a story detailing the struggles of the tribals in reaching their polling booths in April 2019. Recounting the laborious treks, J Murugesan, a 35-year-old resident of Kadamabakuttai village, said that voters used to pack food for their journey to the polling booths, which typically took well over three hours.
However, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the district administration had deployed vehicles to transport voters from the tribal villages to the polling booth. For the local body polls in 2020, villagers from Kadambakuttai were transported to Aalapatti, where a polling booth was set up.
After the proposal for setting up the new polling booths was cleared by the Election Commission of India, officials on poll duty would now have to take considerable effort to navigate the remote areas. A senior revenue official said that government staff on poll duty would be using donkeys to carry EVMs to Kadambakuttai, whereas a vehicle, with a four-wheel-drive feature, would be used to transport the machines from Marandahalli to Aalapatti, located 7 km uphill.