NEW DELHI: Travelling the last mile to ensure that “no voter is left behind” , the EC will set up a polling station in a shipping container at Aliabet in Vagra assembly constituency to save its 217 voters from having to travel 82 kms on polling day to cast their vote. This unique and innovative polling station has been necessitated in the absence of any government or semi-government building in the area.

EC will once again set up a polling station to cater to a single voter in

Una

assembly constituency in Gir forest, though it will be a different voter this time. Banej, the only single-voter polling station in the country, had been catering to

Bharatdas Darshandas

— priest of aLord Shiva temple in Gir forest, the sole habitat of the Asiatic lion in India — since 2007. He died in 2019 but the tradition carries on. The new priest who has replaced

Bharatdas

— 40-year-old Mahant

Haridasji Udasin

— will now cast his vote from this polling station. The number of polling staff here outnumber the number of voters.

CEC Rajiv Kumar on Thursday shared that a polling party will also travel by boat to conduct polling at

Shiyalbet

, an island with a mid-sea polling station. “They have to go by boat as there is no alternate mode of transport to reach the polling station in the Arabian Sea,” he said.

To include Siddis, a community made up of descendants of East African people who came to India during the 14th and 17th century, in the electoral process, the EC has set up three polling stations in

MadhupurJampur

located in Talala assembly constituency of Gir Somnath district. Of the 3,481 eligible to vote at these polling stations, 90% are from the

Siddi

community.

EC has set up a total 51,782 polling stations, with 948 average number of voters per polling station. While 1,274 polling stations will be managed by women, 182 will have differently-abled officers. For the first time, 33 polling stations will be managed by the youngest available polling staff, in a bid to motivate young voters.