Exasperated Villagers of more than eight villages of Karnaprayag, Chamoli to boycott elections for want of road

Sounds ironical and ridiculous as well, that while more than thirty two lakh inhabitants of Uttarakhand have migrated to cities, towns and metropolises for want of jobs, better medical care and quality education for their children making more than three thousand villages empty with majority of villages becoming ghost villages and successive chief Ministers of Uttarakhand of Congress and BJP making tall promises and populist announcements during elections, thus betraying the innocent electorates in Chamoli district’s several villages who are still bereft of roads resulting in immense hardships giving an impression that they are still living in villages of medieval times.

Not only in Chamoli but is several other districts of Garhwal and Kumaon divisions due to non availability of direct and connected roads the villagers have to bring the age old patients and pregnant women on palanquins Or cots to the nearby connecting roads to reach hospitals under challenging situations with several women delivering babies on the way or and old age citizens n pregnant women dying of critical illnesses on the way to hospitals not arriving on time.

There had been hundreds of such tragic incidents taking place off and on the videos od which going viral in social media very often.

Meanwhile, hundreds of infuriated inhabitants of about eight villages of Chamoli districts viz Dothla, Ganoli, Moli, Dumat, Kalgot, Paana, Iraani, Ranvetha, Moli, Roitha, Rawal Juniyari, Thagwad, Bairath, Dugri etc under Karnaprayag Tehsil of Chamoli district have formally made up their mind not to vote for any party till they do not get a written and time bound commitment of constructing roads to their villages.

Their slogan is ” road Nahi to Vote Nahi”, ( No Roads No Votes). Badly exasperated inhabitants of these eight villages of Chamoli district under Karnaprayag Tehsil has taken a decision to boycott the elections on voting date 10 th February as due to the negligent and apathetic attitude of the local MLA and area Member of Parliament their road which was sanctioned in 2006 has not been built till date after the lapse of more than fourteen years.

The Chamoli district Committee elected member Lakhman Singh Bisht after visiting the affected villages and in consultation with the exasperated villagers had taken the decision to boycott the election this time to register their anger and protest against the apathy of the political parties who had never stood true to the peoples expectations, belying their trust.

In addition to this demand the villagers are badly infuriated as a Langasu Maikhura road being built under the Prime minister Road Scheme was not allowed to go to Jabar Inter College by the contractors and the construction company to mint undue profits leading to inconvenience to the students and residents of Maikhura who are badly annoyed.

Not only this serious lapse but the said road has not been mettled for the last ten years resulting in the road being uneven and full of potholes etc posing immense inconvenience to the people n vehicles plying in this road.

The villagers and district Punchayat member Lakshman Singh Bisht has termed the demand of the local villagers as genuine and urged the authorities concerned to take a positive decision in this regard failing which they will boycott the election.

The government authorities on the other hand are trying hard to appease the villagers to participate in the voting on 14 th February.

It may be recalled that while new projects are being inaugurated and announced by the CM Uttarakhand worth several hundred crores of Rupees but the old works of roads are nit moving ahead annoying the villagers of Chamoli district hell bent upon boycotting the elections.

Meanwhile former IPS officer and analyst K. S. Jangpangi questioned as to what these villagers will get by boycotting election. They should rather vote against the party in power which has not met their demand of road construction to their villages. Terming this as a negative approach K. S. Jangpangi said boycotting of election is self defeating exercise and negative approach. Instead the electorates should participate in the election process and teach a lesson to ruling party by voting them out of power so that all political parties will work for the demands of electorates. He added that this way they will ensure that political representatives work for the development of their areas and remain responsive towards the genuine demands of the people they represent.