0% turnout in NW Delhi village as voters boycott poll
NEW DELHI: “No development, no vote,” said residents of northwest Delhi’s Katewara village, located on the Delhi-Haryana border, as they boycotted the municipal polls on Sunday.
The three polling stations in the village, which has around 3,150 voters and is part of the Nangal Thakran municipal ward, wore a deserted look throughout the day. When contacted, a state election commission official confirmed that no resident voted at the three polling booths in the village.
Sitting outside one of the polling stations, village elders said that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi and the
Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled civic body neglected the village.
JP Sharma, 70, said, “We have decided to boycott the elections as there has been no development for several years. The roads are in a pathetic condition and despite repeated requests to the MLA (Jai Bhagwan, AAP) no work has been done. Last Sunday, we held a meeting of residents where it was decided to boycott the elections.”
Sharma said that in end-October, Jai Bhagwan, the MLA from Bawana, inaugurated the project to repair the roads. “But as the elections were announced, the work also stopped. All the three primary entry points to the villages are in a bad condition. There is no hospital nearby. There is no doctor at the government’s
Mohalla Clinic or at the dispensary, the school building is in a bad condition. Why should we vote when the government doesn’t care about our problems,” said Sharma.
Ramesh Chandra Khatri, another resident, said that the crematorium in the village didn’t have any facilities.
“Recently, there was a death in the village. But we couldn’t perform the cremation as it was raining. The cremation site is not even covered properly. We had to cremate the body the next day in the area meant for seating,” said Khatri.
When contacted, Jai Bhagwan said, “I recently got the work started for construction of the main road at a cost of ₹4.5 crore. We tried to get the work started
immediately after NGT’s ban on construction work was lifted. We couldn’t do much work as two years were lost due to Covid
restrictions. Now, we have got projects sanctioned. The work on roads in the villages couldn’t start as we are coming up with a big scheme to lay sewer lines there. There is no point if we construct the roads now and then dig them to lay sewer line.”
Manjeet Chikara, another resident, said, “We have written 80 letters to everyone from the MLA to the deputy chief minister to the chief minister and the lieutenant governor. But no one has addressed our concerns.”
When asked why they didn’t opt for NOTA (none of the above option on EVMs), Vasu Khatri (21), a college student who would have voted for the first time, said, “I was excited about voting. But the situation in the village is such that we don’t want to vote for any party. There has been no development in the village. This (boycotting the polls) is as good as NOTA.”