Horses, ropeways, wheelchairs: People beat odds to reach booths

New Delhi: People eaching polling stations on horses, boats and ropeways, and the elderly on wheelchairs to vote on Saturday were some of the snapshots of the Lok Sabha elections' seventh and last phase held across 57 constituencies in seven states and a Union Territory.

In Danapur in Bihar's Patna district, a group of people reached a polling station on horses and showed their voter cards and inked fingers as they left after exercising their franchise.

People were seen crossing rapids using a ropeway to cast their vote at a polling station in Himachal Pradesh's Kullu district.

While in West Bengal's Sandeshkhali, voters used ferry services to reach polling stations in the Sunderban delta, in Bihar's Patna, people used the services to cross the Ganga and exercise their franchises.

In Punjab's Ferozepur district, a BSF unit was deployed to safely and conveniently ferry voters of Kalu Wala village, which is surrounded by river Sutlej on three sides and India-Pakistan border on the other.

In Himachal Pradesh's Tashigang, the world's highest polling station, people were seen walking up a hill in their traditional attire to vote in the polls. ** At polling stations across the constituencies, the elderly and persons with disabilities were helped by young volunteers to reach booths to vote.

In Varanasi, a holy city in Uttar Pradesh and from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a third term to the Lok Sabha, groups of sadhus were seen queuing up at polling stations to cast their vote.

In view of heatwave conditions in large swathes of northern and eastern India, poll officials had arranged for cold drinking water, coolers and oral rehydration solution kits at polling stations. In Punjab, people were given 'chabeel' (sweetened water) at voting centres to beat the heat.

There were also reports of poll boycott from several areas, including Math Dhajju Giri and Rasulpur villages in Uttar Pradesh, Makhan, Chachul and Juri in Himachal Pradesh and Bagdubhi village in Jharkhand.