TURA: Jumbos now for the jamboree. When Tura in Meghalaya goes to the polls on Saturday, elephants will be doing election duty. The only north-eastern state relatively free of separatist violence, it faces just one threat to peaceful polling: its herd of drunken, wild pachyderms. The authorities have therefore commandeered working elephants from the Forest and Wildlife Department who, along with their trainers or ``mahouts'', will form mounted patrols to block and chase off any marauding wild tuskers. To be doubly sure, they will be accompanied by local tribesmen, who will beat their drums and cymbals to keep the wild elephants at bay.``Wild elephants can pose a threat to voters and poll officials in certain areas during the elections with herds coming down from the hills in search of food and local brew,'' Additional District Magistrate N.D. Sangma, who is responsible for ensuring that the elections go off smoothly, says. Thirty of the polling stations in the constituency -- the first of the twoMeghalaya seats to go to polls -- have been declared ``sensitive''.
Meghalaya has a population of around two million, most of whom belong to the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo tribes. The Garo Hills area of the Tura constituency alone accounts for a quarter of the estimated 6,000 wild elephants in north-east India. With reports indicating that there have been some fresh additions to the number, election officials have also advised voters to take alternative routes to polling booths. ``Immediately after giving birth, the mother elephants get very agitated at the sight of a human being and so we have decided to use other routes to the booths,'' one official says.
Local politician K.K. Sangma feels that with the hired forest elephants and the experienced tribals on duty, there should be no problem. However, one of the candidates at least has more faith in elephant sense than human intelligence. ``Elephants have very strong senses and they can distinguish between good and evil,'' quips National Congress Party leaderand former Lok Sabha speaker P.A. Sangma. ``So I'm sure they will not do any harm to me and my supporters.''
CALCUTTA: Talk about campaign pitfalls! Handed the unenviable task of guiding the moribund West Bengal Congress over the Lok Sabha poll hurdle, AICC general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad decided that the best way was to hit the road himself. But no sooner had he started that the man in-charge of the Congress in the state slipped into a pothole near Pak Circus in south Calcutta. At the time, he was campaigning for party candidate and former CM Siddhartha Shankar Ray. Azad suffered a sprain and had to seek medical treatment. But to his credit, the Congress leader bounced back fast, getting back onto the campaign trail on Tuesday.
AFP AND ENS
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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