Gujarat's Island village Shiyalet all set to vote for Lok Sabha election on May 7
May 06, 2024
Amreli (Gujarat) [India], May 6 : Shiyalbet, a unique polling station situated on an island, is all set to vote for the Lok Sabha election on May 7. It falls under the Amreli Lok Sabha constituency of Gujarat.
Shiyalbet is near Pipavav Port around 15 kilometres from Rajula and around 85 kilometres from Amreli in Gujarat. One needs to take a boat from Pipavav Port to reach Shiyalbet.
Shiyalbet comes under the Rajula Assembly segment of the Amreli Lok Sabha constituency. It has a voter count of around 5000 voters. Five polling booths have been set up in government schools for the upcoming poll.
Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and election duty staff have also reached Shiyalbet by boats after covering a sea route of around one kilometre (906 metres).
Rajula Assembly Constituency has a total of 2.76 lakh registered voters, out of which 1.43 lakh are males and 1.33 lakh are females.
Assistant Returning Officer (ARO) Dr Mehul told ANI, "All the preparation is completed. This (Rajula) assembly constituency has 294 polling stations and one EVM for each polling station. Around 4000 thousand election staff have been deployed for election duty. We have a unique polling station, namely Shiyalbet, which is situated on an island with a vote count of 5000." 
Village Head Amir Bhai Solanki told ANI, "All the preparations have been completed. Voting will be done tomorrow for the Lok Sabha election."
In the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP swept all the 26 seats.
Voting for 25 out of 26 seats in Gujarat is set to take place in the third phase of the ongoing general elections on May 7.
The third phase will include constituencies from Kutch, Banaskantha, Patan, Mehsana, Sabarkantha, Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad East, Ahmedabad West, Surendranagar, Rajkot, Porbandar, Jamnagar, Junagadh, Amreli, Bhavnagar, Anand, Kheda, Panchmahal, Dahod, Vadodara, Chhota Udaipur, Bharuch, Bardoli, Navsari, and Valsad.
However, voting will not take place in Surat as BJP candidate Mukesh Dalal was declared elected unopposed last week. This decision came after the nomination of Congress' Nilesh Kumbhani was rejected, and other candidates withdrew from the contest. The election results will be announced on June 4.
