Mustang. The Mustang-Dolpa road leading to the Sangta polling centre in Waragung Mukti Chhetra-5 of the district has started clearing snow from Tuesday.

Surendra Gurung, ward chairperson of Waragung Mukti Chhetra-5, said that the snow clearance has been started on the road which has been completely disrupted since October 26 for vehicular movement.

Shanta village is located at an altitude of 4,500 metres north÷west of Jomsom, the district headquarters, Mustang. There are 39 voters in Sangta village. The mountain basic school in the same village is about 40 kilometers away from the polling station in Jomsom. Residents of Sangta village of Mustang, which is located in a geographically remote area, are now outside the village.

Locals of Sangta village near the border of Mustang and Dolpa have left their villages to escape the cold and are staying at their relatives’ houses in villages around Jomsom in Mustang. Some of them have gone to Pokhara and Kathmandu to escape the cold. Except for a few shepherds in the village, all the houses in the village have been locked. It seems that the village of Shanta is completely anonymous after all the locals have left the village.

There are only 13 households in Sangta village. The locals return to their villages only in the month of March÷April to escape the winter cold. However, they are compelled to reach the village before March 21 to cast their vote in the election to the House of Representatives scheduled for March 4.

A team from the District Security Committee, which had inspected the Himalayan polling centre at Sangta village few days ago, had returned halfway on the road leading to Sangta village. The monitoring of most of the polling centres in Mustang has not been done after the District Security Committee carried out an on-site monitoring of the polling centres.