The residents of Makhan, Chachul, and Juri villages in the Churah subdivision of Himachal Pradesh's Chamba district boycotted the Lok Sabha polls being convened today. The villagers demand road connectivity to their respective villages.
The residents of the twin remote villages of Makhan and Chachul falling under Sanval gram panchayat and Juri in Charda Gram panchayat said that they would not vote until the district administration listens to their grievances.
"We will not vote until the district administration comes here and listens to our grievances," said Ravi, a local.
The villagers also alleged that although the administration was apprised of the issues, nothing has changed.
"We are still waiting for internet connectivity, road, and electricity and the situation is so pathetic that if someone falls ill, we have to carry the patients on foot for 4-5 km to reach the health centre and several people have died as they could not get treatment on time," Mukesh Kumar, a resident of Makhan village, stated.
Kumar said it has been 76 years since Independence but still, our village awaits basic facilities like roads. He added that there are about 900 voters in the booth catering to the two villages.
The villagers, including men and women, gathered in huge numbers outside polling booth No. 25 in Makhan village but refused to vote.
"We have decided not to vote as our demands have gone unheard," he said, adding that students are not able to study as there is no internet connectivity and several students dropped out of school during lockdown due to the Covid pandemic.
"Besides basic facilities, we demand the building of government schools be repaired and the teachers be deployed in these schools. At present, there is one teacher for 100 students," he rued.
The villagers said that they would start an agitation in the future in case their demands are not fulfilled.
Similarly, the villagers of Juri said that they had decided to boycott the polls in the last election as well but voted on the assurance of officials that work for construction of the road would be started in ten days. However, the promise is yet to be fulfilled.
In a viral video from Juri village, the villagers said that our village is located on the hill top with water bodies around and we have to trek around 10 km to reach the nearest health centre. They lamented that a link road was sanctioned from Charda to Juri in 2006 but it has not yet been constructed.
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