1 voter in an Arunachal booth on April 11

A polling booth in Arunachal Pradesh's Hayuliang Assembly constituency will have only one voter on April 11, when 7.94 lakh voters exercise their franchise for two Lok Sabha seats and 60-member Assembly.

The frontier state that shares its borders with China, Myanmar and Bhutan will also have 9,040 more female voters compared to male voters.

An official statement issued by the office of the chief electoral officer, Arunachal Pradesh, said there is only one female voter in the Malogam Temporary Structure polling station under the Assembly constituency. Polling station number 52 SE (power) offices, East Side, Naharlagun under Itanagar (ST) constituency will have a maximum of 1, 340 voters.

Filing of nominations for the Assembly elections will begin on April 18 and counting will be held on May 23. Polling station number 18-Luguthang under 3-Mukto Assembly constituency,
situated at an altitude of 13, 583 feet has been identified as the highest among the 2,202 polling stations in the hilly state.

A total of 99.97% of voters have been provided with Electoral Voter Identity Card, while 11 polling stations would be set up exclusively for female voters only. "For the first time, VVPAT will be used along with EVMs in all the polling stations," said the statement.

The frontier state has seen five governments under three chief ministers in the past five years. Chief Minister Pema Khandu, who along with 33 MLAs switched from People's Party of Arunachal (PPA) to BJP in January 2017 and formed the government with 12 BJP MLAs and independents.

Khandu was with the Congress when he formed the government in July 2017. Before Khandu became the chief minister, political uncertainty dominated the state after senior minister Kalikho Pul broke away from the Congress government of Nabam Tuki with 24 MLAs to form a PPA government in February.

Pul’s government was removed after a Supreme Court verdict reinstated Tuki. But with most Congress MLAs backing Khandu, Tuki had to resign in July. A dejected Pul committed suicide in Itanagar in August that year. Next month Khandu left the Congress with 42 MLAs to join the PPA.

Khandu government, however, is now struggling with strong public protests over according to permanent residence certificates to six non-tribal communities.