Itanagar:
A team of 15 polling personnel traversed through rugged terrains for 26 hours with little food for holding the October 13 polling in a booth having only three voters in Arunachal Pradesh but only one voter turned up to exercise his vote.
Presiding officer Rinchin Tsetim Khom said the trek was all the more difficult due to landslides that destroyed the porter track, which is the lifeline of the people of the remote district of Dibang Valley where the booth was located at Mrombo.
The team had to cut bushes, clear jungles, climb slippery mountains, cross rivers and rivulets and caves infested with wild animals and starving leeches to make it to Mrombo.
On reaching the place on October 12, the team found that only a middle aged man named Trisso Lingi was waiting alone on the balcony of his traditional hut.
The voter informed the poll party that he came down to Mromboo after trekking several hours from Munli, a village on Sino-India border, to cast his vote.
He said he and his family members had shifted to Munili sometime back because it is easier for them to get essential commodities, including life saving drugs from nearby Dumbuk sub divisional headquarters, which takes only two hours trek.
The polling party was, however, spared of the ordeal of undertaking another arduous return journey when the authorities arranged for airlifting them.
There were 10 booths in Arunachal which had voters ranging from three to nine.