One man, one vote in Indian forest
India has 828,804 polling stations in the current general election, but one of them is unique. It has just one voter. The BBC’s Soutik Biswas travels into the forest to meet him.
In a desolate, seemingly endless, lion-infested forest in India, a single man waits to exercise his fundamental right. On 30 April, five polling officials accompanied by two policemen will travel into the wild to pick up the ballot of Guru Bharatdas Darshandas, who looks after a temple in the Gir forest in the western state of Gujarat. Mr Darshandas is the only voter at the polling station of Banej in Gir, the last abode of the Asiatic lion. Barely a few hundred metres from the Shiva temple where Mr Darshandas lives and work is the freshly whitewash… Continue Reading