The district may be new but old problems continue to linger. In newly created West Karbi Anglong, conducting elections is a logistical nightmare.

"Hamren (the district headquarters) is now in West Karbi Anglong district but the issues confronting us - inaccessible villages, lack of cellphone and road connectivity - remain the same," said S.I. Kathar, a health department official here.

"If a vehicle on election duty breaks down and an automobile part needs to be replaced, then it has to be brought in all the way from Hojai, 65km away, because there is no automobile shop here," he added.

West Karbi Anglong became a new district on February 11 this year. It is one of the five new districts created by the Tarun Gogoi government ahead of the polls, taking the number of districts in the state to 32.

The imminent Assembly polls on April 4 has yet again brought to the fore the area's glaring deficiencies - of the 246 polling stations in Baithalangso, the lone Assembly constituency in West Karbi Anglong, 175 are in shadow areas where there no landline or cellphone connectivity.

"This is perhaps the only constituency in the state with so many polling stations in shadow areas," West Karbi Anglong deputy commissioner Debo Kumar Nath told The Telegraph.

He said very-high frequency (VHF) wireless sets, used by Assam police, will be pressed into service in the shadow areas. "We have also requested the Election Commission to provide at least 12 satellite phones for those polling stations where VHF wireless sets don't work," Nath said.

Telecom services apart, travelling to remote areas is also a nightmare.

Polling personnel will have to traverse distances of 4km-12km on foot, through forests in hilly terrain, from the nearest roadhead to reach 11 polling stations in remote and inaccessible areas in West Karbi Anglong, district election officer Ohed Uz Zaman said.

Each polling party will comprise four to five personnel on an average and they will have to take the help of porters to carry polling equipment, ranging from electronic voting machines and batteries to the indelible ink, to polling stations.

Zaman said 309 vehicles would be required for election duty but only around 30 vehicles are available locally. "We will have to bring the remaining vehicles from Hojai and Guwahati and stationary from Hojai, as a result election expenses will shoot up. Frequent strikes and public agitation further complicate our problem. Conducting elections (here) is a test for us," Zaman said.

Hamren is 258km from Guwahati. The district is also affected by insurgency with a number of militant groups, such as the United People's Liberation Army (UPLA) and Karbi People's Liberation Tigers (KPLT), active in the area. UPLA cadres had killed Hamren superintendent of police Nityananda Goswami in June 2014.

The district shares a 162km border with Meghalaya and there are certain Khasi-dominated villages along the border where people do not want to vote in Assam because they want to be part of Meghalaya. "In those areas the polling percentage is always very low," the district election officer said.

Baithalangso seat is reserved for Scheduled Tribes and has 1,79,305 voters. This time it is likely to witness a direct contest between two-time sitting Congress MLA Mansing Rongpi and Hill State Demand Council (HSDC) nominee Holiram Terang, a former MLA. The BJP, which is relatively a new entrant here, has fielded Arun Terang.