'Green drive': Polling booth in UP’s Maharajganj gifts voters saplings

Lucknow, Jun 2 (PTI) Maharajganj district administration distributed saplings to more than 1,500 voters, who turned up at a 'green (polling) booth' setup for the Lok Sabha elections.

The Maharajganj District Magistrate of Anunaya Jha, on Sunday told PTI, "Ever since the election process started, we were seeing intense heatwaves and a lot of problems were faced by our voters as well as our polling personnel due to the heatwave and the intense heat. Given this, we wanted to raise awareness regarding the environment and ecological balance." He further explained, "The district administration took on board the forest department of Maharajganj, and we constructed a green booth in the district, wherein the forest department also displayed informative material regarding forest cover in the district as well as the Sohagi-Barwa tiger reserve." The Sohagi Barwa Wildlife Sanctuary is located in the Maharajganj district of Uttar Pradesh. It covers 428.2 square kilometres. Sohagi Barwa Wildlife Sanctuary is one of the tiger habitats in Uttar Pradesh.

"As a token of our gratitude and appreciation towards the voters of the green booth, we presented them with local varieties of plants like Tulsi, mangoes, drumstick , and amla, which they could plant in the pots in their houses, and in the coming monsoon, these plants could grow." Apart from giving plants, they also set up a medical booth at the polling centre in the Sonari Devi School, Jha said.

Maharajganj Lok Sabha seat covers the assembly constituencies of Pharenda, Nautanwa, Siswa, Maharajganj (SC) and Paniyara.

"We had distributed more than 1,500 saplings. It was a new initiative, and hence we wanted to keep it at one booth for the time being. But, I am sure that we will replicate this in the coming elections as well. This was a step in raising awareness regarding the environment and ecological balance," he said.

He also informed that at present the forest cover of Maharajganj district stands at 24 per cent.

Additional District Magistrate Pankaj Kumar Verma told PTI that the concept of "green polling booth" was made to motivate the voters to go for maximum polling.

From Maharajganj Lok Sabha, which voted on Saturday, as many as eight candidates were in the poll fray, with the main contest between Union minister and BJP candidate Pankaj Chaudhary and the sitting Congress MLA from Pharenda assembly constituency of Maharajganj district Virendra Chaudhary.

Pankaj Chaudhary (59), who is the Union minister of state of Finance, is seeking a seventh term as a Lok Sabha MP from this parliamentary constituency.

The polling percentage in Maharajganj was 60.26 per cent. PTI NAV HIG HIG