M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, April 26: At least three different polling booths meant for the ensuing Jharkhand Panchayat election have been liberated from the villagers by the BDO Tarhassi Sachidanand Mahto, who is also the returning officer for the ward member election, and the officer in charge of the Tarhassi police station Karampal Bhagat.
The 3 polling booths 94, 95 and 66 are located under the Tarhassi block and police station. They are under the occupancy of the villagers living too close to these polling booths. The booths were serving their homely purposes.
Polling booths number 94 and 95 are in one building at Gahandeeh under Pathak Pagar panchayat. They are in an abandoned government upgraded middle school. This school has been merged with another school and hence no teaching is done here.
A farmer living close to these booths had occupied it. He had stocked his household items there.
The Tarhassi BDO said he along with police officer Karampal Bhagat reached these two polling booths 94 and 95 on Monday and found them occupied illegally by the farmer. He was asked to vacate these two polling booths and he obliged the officials’ orders.
“During the physical verification of the booths conducted by panchayat sachiv Ram Chandra Ram, the capturing and occupancy of the booths by the neighbours came to our notice and we took a prompt action to get it liberated and vacated it,” said BDO Sachidanand Mahto.
There was a similar occupancy of polling booth number 66 at village Dhuma under the Gurha panchayat. This polling booth is set up in a discarded Anganbadi Kendra. It was occupied by Bides Ram who had his cow, fodder, mounds of sand etc kept in this booth.
BDO Mahto got it cleared also. He said that the government buildings which are not in use have been occupied by people living in the continuity of it. He said government schools merged with others and dilapidated Anganbadi Kendras are the ones getting occupied by the villagers more.
“We have stepped up our physical verification of the polling booths following this kind of unauthorised occupancy. There may be a couple of more such cases at village Ara Kuda and Teldeeha where such capturing of polling booths are alleged to have been done,” the BDO said.
Voting in the Tarhassi block is due on May 24. The total number of polling booths in Tarhassi is 163. The number of voters at one polling booth varies from 375 to 475.
