Polling booth for least voters and one at highest altitude, Leh has it all

The polling station for casting votes for the least number of voters - only 12 - has been set up at Gaik village under Leh assembly segment of Ladakh parliamentary constituency,

A polling booth for the least number of voters and one at the highest altitude, Leh has it all among the 11,316 polling stations set up for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in Jammu and Kashmir.

The polling station for casting votes for the least number of voters - only 12 - has been set up at Gaik village under Leh assembly segment of Ladakh parliamentary constituency, Leh District Electoral Officer Anvy Lavasa old PTI.

"Gaik polling station (number 38) has the lowest voters, only 12," she said.

The voters at Gaik village include only five males and seven females, she added.

Similarly the district also has a polling station at the highest altitude in the country at 14,890 ft above the sea level, she said, adding this polling station with the unique distinction has been set up at a place called Anlay Pho.

She said the two are among the 294 polling stations set up in Leh assembly segment.

A total of 11,316 polling stations have been set up in the state for 78,42,979 voters to exercise their rights of franchise in the multi-phase parliamentary polls in Jammu and Kashmir starting April 11 to choose six MPs.

Out of the six parliamentary constituencies, the Ladakh constituency also has the distinction of having the least number of polling stations, only 559, for the lowest voters numbering 1,71,819.

Leh and Kargil districts, forming parts of Ladakh Lok Sabha constituency, have 294 and 265 polling stations respectively.

As per the official figures, most of the polling stations have been set up at an altitude of 8,001 to 13,000 feet with the maximum number of high-altitude stations, numbering 183, located in Leh assembly segment, followed by 158 in Kargil segment.

Over 190 polling stations have been set up at altitudes between 7,001 to 8,000 feet.

Business Standard

Cups of tea, pashmina and momos: Here's how to go touring India on a budget

In the Ladakh region of northern India, the town of Leh is known for its beauty and culture, and for the experience of buying a cashmere scarf.

I told the owner, George Sher Ali, that I’d been in his shop before, several years before, and his ears perked up. “Tell me what you bought,” he said, and reached for a tall stack of old assignment notebooks. “I will tell you exactly when you came in.”

I said I’d been into his art and print shop, L’Araba Fenice, roughly eight years ago on a trip to Leh, a town in the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir, in the far north of India. I bought two or three postcards, as had a friend who had come with me. He flipped through the pages of a few dog-eared notebooks for several minutes before announcing decisively, “This is you. Five postcards.” And he pointed at a hand-scrawled entry in a ledger dated Sept. 19, 2010. It was eight years ago to the day that I’d visited his store.

Leh (pronounced LAY), once the royal seat of a former Buddhist kingdom, is a place with a seemingly undying memory, ageless and eternal as the mountains that surround it. The Ladakh region, dotted with poplars and dominated by the Himalayas, has changed noticeably over the last decade, welcoming more tourists, restaurants and guesthouses. But it remains a wondrous destination for the adventurous traveler, full of captivating scenery, generous and friendly people, and accessible monasteries and holy places nearby. And it doesn’t hurt that it can all be done fairly inexpensively.

A couple of planning tips: You’ll probably want to arrive by plane. The flight to Leh’s Kushok Bakula Rimpochee Airport from New Delhi is about an hour, compared to a 25-hour drive. Flights, fortunately, can be cheap. I bought a one-way ticket directly through Air India for about 2,800 Indian rupees, or less than $40. Because of the unpredictable mountain climate at such high altitude (Leh is at around 11,500 feet), flights arrive and depart in the morning. Don’t plan to hop an evening flight.

After arriving in Delhi, I spent a couple of days sightseeing and getting used to the time change before heading up to Leh early one morning. My trip was part of a longer journey to India, to places that will be featured in future columns. You can expect a good deal of bureaucracy when it comes to travel in this country. Have copies of your itinerary printed out, and a copy of the credit card with which you made a given ticket purchase, or the card itself.

Despite the territorial jockeying between China, Pakistan and India over the disputed Kashmir region, you won’t need any kind of special visa or permit to visit Leh, or sites on the Srinagar-Leh Highway that runs west from town — your Indian visa will do. But if you want to go to certain areas like the Nubra Valley, north of Leh, you’ll need a special Inner Line Permit. The price depends on the length of the permit, but will run in the neighborhood of 400 to 500 rupees.

Friends I’d met during my previous trip to Leh — Tundup, a native of the area, and Sina, a Swiss national who visits frequently — picked me up at the airport and dropped me at my lodgings, the Hotel Spic-n-Span on Old Leh Road (double rooms cost around $45 to $60 per night online). There are hundreds of hotels and guesthouses in Leh, at every price point, but I’d recommend staying within walking distance of the Main Bazaar, the hub of shopping and dining activity in town.... Read More

Business Standard