October 05: In the wake of the familiarization tours, communities are getting politically divided. Our Tashigang correspondent Tenzin Namgyel says, in many cases people have pledged and declared their support for either PDP or DPT long before the party presidents arrived in their gewog.

The familiarization visits are raising more questions than answers. Some were under the impression that the campaigning had begun.

This week, as the President of People’s Democratic Party arrived in Merak and Sakteng, he was greeted by huge crowds of people. But an equal number of people stayed away from the meeting. They had decided that they won’t attend the PDP meeting even before the PDP president arrived in their village.

Similarly when the Druk Phuensum Tshogpa President visited Phongmi gewog, large number of people turned out to greet him. But an equal number of people had decided to stay away from the DPT meeting long before he arrived there on familiarization tour.

Both party workers and observers believe that people should attend the meeting of both parties and question their leaders and then decide as to which party they would like to support.

However several people BBS spoke to said they will attend the familiarization meetings and campaigns of both the parties and then make their decision.