Several people, who were eligible to apply for postal ballot, may have lost their right to vote because of the power outage in Tangsibji Gewog. The gewog which falls under Trongsa has been without power supply the whole of last week.
“We did not have power supply for the last ten days,” said Karma Dema, who works with the administration section of Jigme Singye Wangchuk National Park. She said had there been continuous electricity, they could have surely sent their ballots.
Tshanka Lower Secondary School also faced similar problems due to the power outage. The teachers, who did manage to send their postal ballots, are not too sure if the Returning Officers received them.
The Principal of the school, Rabilal Adhikari, said the teachers sent the postal ballots when there was electricity. “There was a rush at that time, but none of the teachers have been able check if their ballots have reached or not”
Sherab Jamtsho, the Trongsa BPC Manager said the power failure was caused by lightning that struck insulators of electric poles at various places. He added that two teams along with officials from the Mangdichhu Project are studying the situation but have not been able to locate the problem.
