Authorities in Chhattisgarh's Korba are dealing with a rather unusual poll-related problem about man-elephant conflict in the region for successfully conducting the third phase of Lok Sabha elections on May 7. The administration is on a mission to track the movement of wild elephants to avert any conflict with humans during the voting on Tuesday.
Division Forest Officer Kumar Nishant said that 65 polling stations have been identified that come under elephant-affected areas and are very vulnerable and sensitive.
"Our tracking team goes to every village and tells villagers that on the day of the elections, they must vote as early as possible and try to vote before sunset," he said.
Korba District Collector Ajeet Vasant said that adequate arrangements have been made to track wild elephants and mitigate any conflict during elections.
"There are some areas in Korba where human-animal conflicts take place... Korba is divided into two forest divisions and in both of them, people are being educated regularly and awareness programs are run in the villages," Vasant said.
"The possibility of such incidents increases in the evening... The administration is ensuring that this problem does not affect the polling... Elephants come towards the villages during harvest season in search of food...," he added.
As per forest officials, elephants travel during the night mainly which makes the task of tracking them difficult. The forest officials use thermal drones to track their movements and alert villagers if they approach a village at night, according to an ANI report.
Known as the gateway of elephants, Korba has been suffering from increased man-elephant conflict. Between 2019 and 2023, at least 245 people have been killed due to elephant attacks in Chhattisgarh, accounting for 15 per cent of such casualties in India.
Apart from the elephant issue, development, and inflation will be the other subjects that voters would consider before giving their mandate in Korba.