'Peaceful' Haryana village wants to shed 30-yr-old hypersensitive booth tag

EC had identified the Jui polling booth in Haryana's Bhiwani-Mahendragarh constituency as hypersensitive in 1989 after a man died in firing following a clash between two groups over elections

In this election season, Haryana's Jui Khurd village has a different demand.

Villagers want to shed the "hypersensitive" polling station tag which was given to it two decades back.

The Election Commission had identified the Jui polling booth in Haryana's Bhiwani-Mahendragarh constituency as hypersensitive in 1989 after a man died in firing following a clash between two groups over elections.

Since then it has become a permanent tag for the village which impacts its image, according to villagers.

The village, which has a population of over 6000 persons, is headed by a woman sarpanch.

There have been seven general elections since the incident and all of them have been peaceful. However, we still carry the tag which has become a permanent one. The village has developed so much and we are happy with the progress but being termed as hypersensitive not only impacts our image but also future prospects, village sarpanch Roop Pati told PTI.

But we have been appealing to the government as well as the Election Commission to conduct a review and remove the hypersensitive tag since there has been no unfortunate incident in the past, she added.

According to Ramesh Bahadur, who is planning to contest the next sarpanch elections, the Election Commission keeps repeating the same lists without conducting any fresh inspection.

Once a polling booth is declared critical, sensitive or hypersensitive. It becomes a forever thing. No wonder how much an area progresses, they never conduct fresh review or inspections, he said.

Bhiwani-Mahendargarh constituency is among 10 constituencies in Haryana which will vote on May 12. The constituency also has two women candidates in the fray.

While the BJP has fielded sitting MP Dharambir Singh from the constituency, the Congress has nominated former MP Shruti Chaudhury.

Swati Yadav is the representative of the AAP-JJP alliance and the INLD has fielded Balwan Yadav from the constituency.