After much persuasion, reluctant villagers cast votes

A few villagers of Mahadev Nagar, under Nanjangud Assembly (Reserved) constituency, who were upset over successive  governments ignoring their village initially refused to cast their votes on Sunday. They were finally convinced by local leaders to exercise their franchise.

The residents had refused to exercise their franchise as none of the governments in power had initiated development works in the village. However, local leaders managed to convince them to vote on Sunday.

According to villager Sayeeda, no government had provided basic facilities even though they had been residing in the village for 25 years. A majority of the villagers are economically backward and depend on daily wage work. “Many of us do not have ration cards and the village has no fair price shop, electricity, etc,” she said.

Another villager said that though they have been urging the elected representatives to provide facilities, none are showing interest. “When the political party leaders are not bothered about us, why should we vote for them?” they questioned.

The village has an approximate 750 voters who had to travel a distance of three km to cast their votes. Their repeated requests to the authorities to establish a polling booth in their village for a few years now had also fallen on deaf ears thus the villagers had refused to vote for any party.