Gujarat village boycotted elections

While other cities and places in Gujarat are interestingly participating in elections, this village in Gujarat has decided to boycott the elections. What is that village and why did it decide so?

It is Gajadi village in Morbi distrtict of Gujarat. The village has been facing water problems for many years.

In Gajadi village there are 1,000 registered voters.

In the first phase of Gujarat elections that were held on Saturday, the polling booths in Saurashtra and South Gujarat witnessed large queues of people casting their vote. However, none of the Gajadi voters showed interest in voting.

The main reason is the severe water problem in the village and villagers want to show their dissatisfaction to authorities and government. As a result, zero polling was recorded in this village while several sources state that around 68 per cent voters turned out in the first phase of Gujarat elections in other places.

The villagers are supplied water through a pipeline as per government officials, but it was not sufficient to meet their needs hence they demanded for another pipeline. But, since it was not arranged as per the requests of the villagers, they decided to boycott elections and announced their decision few months ago.

Even after the district administration tried to convince them to participate in elections, the villagers refrained from voting.

According to Morbi Collector who is also the District Election Officer of the village, the villagers were told they would get a new pipeline.

However, they said that they need a written assurance.

The authorities could not provide assurance in writing as there was the model code of conduct in place.

As a result, villagers boycotted the voting and no one turned out to cast their votes.

Image Credit: Balaram Mahalder / CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Image Reference: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crisis_of_drinking_water.jpg