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A polling party has gone missing in the restive Bastar region where polling started Thursday morning with no major note of violence.
Reports from Sukma district, one of the worst Naxal-infested districts in the country, said that a polling party had failed to reach the Devarpalli polling booth. There was no official version from the district administration about the whereabouts of the party.
People were lined up outside the polling booth but the party had not reached the station.
The booth, which is located in the red zone about 70 km from the district headquarters, had been categorised as hyper sensitive.
Meanwhile, polling in the remaining 1,766 booths in Bastar Lok Sabha constituency started Thursday morning. The election commission had decided to hold polling from 7 am to 3 pm in the red zone. The time had been curtailed to facilitate polling parties to safely return to the headquarters from the interior areas. Many parties would be air-lifted before dusk.
According to reports reaching from Bastar, about 15% polling was reported in the constituency. No major untoward incident had been reported from any part of the constituency, the officials said.
