Shillong Apr 9: Out of 3,167 polling booths in Meghalaya, 106 polling booths are still inaccessible where polling officials have to walk on foot due to the absence of road.

On Tuesday, polling parties have also started leaving for their polling booths which are very far, including those that require foot march.

The Lok Sabha polls to Tura and Shillong and the bye election to Selsella Assembly constituency will be held on Thursday.

The polling parties have started moving to as many as 1074 polling booths.

The rest of the polling parties will move on Wednesday.

The Shillong parliamentary seat has 2,053 polling stations, and Tura has 1,114 polling stations, including 50 polling booths under the Selsella Assembly seat.

There are 407 vulnerable polling booths and 107 critical polling booths.

The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), F.R. Kharkongor said that polling officials have to walk on foot in as many as 106 polling booths.

He said that the service of runners would be also used for transmitting messages between officials at the polling station and a sector officer who stationed at a place where mobile network is available in order to feed updates related to polling percentage and other activities.

In Shillong there are six candidates who include sitting Congress Lok Sabha member, Vincent H. Pala, BJP candidate, Sanbor Shullai, UDP’s Jemino Mawthoh and three Independents – T.H.S. Bonney, Romeo Phira Ranee and Samuel Hashah.

In Tura, former Chief Minister, Mukul Sangma of the Congress, former Union Minister, Agatha K. Sangma of the NPP and Rikman G. Momin of the BJP.