Forces flood Jharkhand to keep Maoists at bay

RANCHI/DALTONGANJ: More than 35,000 poll personnel were on Monday airdropped by choppers to polling booths in 13 assembly seats that go to the polls on Tuesday. The constituencies spread over Palamu, Lohardaga, Latehar, Chatra, Gumla and Garhwa along the Jharkhand-Chhattisgarh border go to vote amid a Maoist poll boycott call.
Intelligence agencies have warned of Maoists trying to cross over the Chhattisgarh border to obstruct polling.In the past weeks, forces have seized IEDs, posters and engaged Left-wing extremists at Gumla and elsewhere. Forces have been deployed in the nearly 4,000 booths to ensure polling goes off peacefully.
“Security preparations are almost foolproof in the six districts and we have heightened area domination," said DGP , Rajeev Kumar. For the first time motorbikes and bicycles have been hired at Rs 200 and Rs 50 to be used by security and poll personnel to travel on hilly terrain.
With the districts also bordering Bihar, the first phase will prove a testing ground for RJD chief Lalu Prasad and former Bihar CM Nitish Kumar. The six candidates from RJD and two from JD(U) are contesting for the first time under the Congress-RJD-JD(U) alliance.
Voters complain that every election the issues remain the same, only the faces change. In Palamu, for instance, the rhetoric has been about unemployment, migration, water crisis and extremism.This election is no different. The pitch in these backward regions has been about drinking water, irrigation, jobs, healthcare facilities and education.
“Nothing has improved. Netas talk big. We remain where we were,“ says Md Sher Khan, a 62-year-old mechanic. The complaint resonates across the region.
Palamu, Garhwa and Latehar receive scanty rainfall. Last year Palamu got 945mm rain, Garhwa and Latehar recorded 794 mm each. Promises to augment irrigation remain on paper and agriculture suffers. President of Bharatiya Suraaj Party PK Siddharth, a former IPS officer, and fighting from Daltonganj, feels unemployment is the area's big issue.“If I win, I'll make the constituency unemployment-free,“ he says. Agriculture minister K N Tripathy says if re-elected, he'd focus on building a 300-bed hospital and make Palamu an education hub.
Easier said than done. Maoism is a serious threat here. A stretch of NH-75 is heavily patch-worked bearing testimony to Maoist depredations. Central forces guard the road. “This is where 10 securitymen died in a 2011 blast,“ a villager informs, pointing to a spot where the rebels triggered explosives targeting then MP Inder Singh Namdhari. His son Dilip is contesting from Daltonganj.