With little hope of the land route getting cleared of snow by June 3, the polling date for the Leh-Ladakh Lok Sabha constituency, the returning officer has requested the Air Force to make provision for at least 14 sorties by MI-17 helicopters to drop the polling parties with the ballot papers and other material at 46 polling stations.

The constituency, with an average height of 12,000 ft above sea level, comprises an effective area of 55,000 sq km. The highest polling station in the constituency, Anglay Phoo, is located at 15,000 ft while one of the polling stations, Damchok, has just 12 registered voters. "We have to set up a polling station even for them," says RK Goyal, returning officer, Leh.

"We shall be spending close to Rs two crore on the helicopter sorties to sendpolling parties," adds Goyal. A majority of the polling parties, who can reach the polling stations through trekking, shall be dispatched three days in advance along with their ration and polling material. They shall take as many days to trek back and, therefore, the district administration hopes to receive all the ballot boxes on June 6.

Though Leh-Ladakh is one of the largest constituencies in the country, it has just 1.43 lakh registered voters. And here there are more female voters than male voters. However, the Election Commission has forced the longest spell of electioneering in the constituency. Though it is well known that virtually the entire constituency remains snow-bound during winter, the EC fixed February 28 as the date of polling. Wisdom dawned late and the date was postponed to June 3 but the process of filing nominations, scrutiny and withdrawal of nominations was over by then.

Politicians admit it is tough to maintain the tempo for such a long period. "We had to keep the voters, andparticularly the active party workers, in good humour during all this extended period," says Sonam Wangdus, district president of the National Conference. There are four candidates: Agha Syed Hussain (NC), P Namgyal (Congress), Spalzes Angmo (BJP) and Mohd Yaqoob (BSP). The main contest, however, is between the Congress and the NC candidates. Predictably, none of the central leaders has come for campaigning nor is any senior leader expected.

"No one who is in a hurry can afford to come here. After all, there is sound medical advise that anyone coming by air must remain quarantined for 24 hours for acclimatisation and must exert less even in the next few says,"says A Wangchuk, a resident. Although the maximum temperature rarely crosses 17 degrees Centigrade during this month and the average minimum hovers around 5 degrees Centigrade, campaigning is no easy task.

For miles together there is no village and the terrain where "not a blade of grass grows" (an expression made famous by Jawaharlal Nehru duringthe 1962 Sino-India war), rules out personal contacts by the candidates or their workers. The constituency, which comprises two main regions -- the Buddhist-dominated Ladakh and the Muslim-dominated Kargil -- has a history of communal tension. But this year, the campaign has been peaceful.

The Congress candidate is from the Ladakh region and the NC candidate the Kargil region. The NC candidate has not visited the Ladakh region nor intends to visit it before the elections! Apparently, his party workers fear that his visit may generate communal passions and may actually curtail the number of votes he expects to get from the region. The two regions have an almost equal number of voters and the percentage of voters belonging to the minority community in both the regions is pegged at about 12 per cent.