Pachakanam polling station, the remotest booth in Idukki, recorded the lowest voter turnout in the first phase of the local body polls on Tuesday. This is also the booth with the lowest number of voters in the State. Of the 32 voters, only nine cast their votes.
As voters elsewhere waited in queue for their turn to vote, polling officials at Pachakanam waited for voters to turn up at the booth.
The polling station at Pachakanam is at an anganwadi building inside a cardamom plantation, under Ward 11 (Thekkady ward) of the Kumily grama panchayat, and located inside the Periyar Tiger Reserve. All the 32 voters are estate workers.
The Thekkady ward has also another unique feature of being the largest (in terms of area) ward in the State, consisting mostly of tribespeople of Mannan community, with a total number of 830 voters. The ward extends from Mullaperiyar Lake to the border with Tamil Nadu.
To reach the polling station at Pachakanam, one has to travel 35 km through Vandiperiyar braving wild animals. A four-member polling team and two police officers reached there on Monday evening. As there is no mobile network in the area, details of polling will not be immediately available.
K. Senkumar, assistant returning officer, Pachakanam, told The Hindu that only three voters turned up till p.m.
In earlier elections too only five or six voters exercised their franchise, In the last Lok Sabha elections, only four persons cast their votes. The State Election Commission had ensured that sanitiser, water, and soap are available at the booth for voters for the safe conduct of the polls.
The voters at Pachakanam are estate workers of Tamil origin settled there for generations.