ASSAM | Polling officers facing transportation problems

The Assam State Election Commission has faced shortage of vehicles in few constituencies for transportation of men and material for the first phase polls due to a protest by private bus owners' association.

Voting for the first phase polls in five Lok Sabha constituencies – Kaliabor, Tezpur, Lakhimpur, Jorhat and Dibrugarh- in Assam will be held on Thursday. A total of  9,574 polling stations have been set up for smooth conduct of elections in the five parliamentary constituencies.

However, in Lakhimpur, private bus owners have decided not to cooperate with government in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

"We are facing problems because of unavailability of sufficient vehicles to reach the polling stations" : said the polling officers. The officers are in anxiety to reach their polling stations before the reporting time issued by Election commission.

The Bus owners' alleged that the government has not heeded to their demands to increase the fare of the vehicles used for election purposes.

In Numaligarh, the election officers waited longer periods of time for public vehicles in order to reach their destination.

Recently, Assam Private Bus owners' Association said that the state government did not pay attention to increase the fare of the vehicles used for election purposes.