Madhya Pradesh Assembly Election 2023: That village of Madhya Pradesh where no candidate has reached to ask for votes since independence, this time the Election Commission is going to do this work
Madhya Pradesh Assembly Election 2023: There is such an inaccessible polling station in Alirajpur district of Madhya Pradesh, where to reach the assembly elections, the election officials will have to travel first by boat with the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) and then face difficulty in the hilly area. You will also have to travel on foot. Officials gave this information on Thursday.
This polling station has been built in the Gram Panchayat building of Jhandana in Alirajpur assembly constituency reserved for tribals. This inaccessible village is located in the submergence area of backwater after colliding with the wall of Sardar Sarovar Dam built on the Narmada River in Gujarat, neighboring Madhya Pradesh. Despite the floods that occurred in the area near the dam years ago, about a thousand people of the tribal community are not ready to leave their homeland of Jhandana village, while facing extremely difficult conditions in this inaccessible area.
763 people of this village have the right to vote for the assembly elections to be held on November 17 in the state. Jhandana village is just 60 kilometers away from the district headquarters of Alirajpur, but has lagged behind in the race of development and basic facilities for many decades. During the election period, flags of political parties are visible on a few houses in the village, but the villagers say that till now no candidate has come to their village to ask for votes.
Most of the people of Jhandana speak Bhili dialect. Village resident Vandana (23) said, ‘There is a road problem in our village and we have to take the help of boat to connect with the outside world. Whenever a person in the village falls ill, we take him to the nearby hospital by boat. The woman, who has studied till class 10th, said that every year due to increase in the level of backwater of the dam after the rains, there are difficulties in living and this is the reason why many people of the village have migrated to Gujarat for employment. Despite being surrounded by the immense back water of the dam, the biggest irony is that there is a drinking water crisis in the village. According to the villagers, the situation becomes dire in summer.
Alirajpur District Magistrate Abhay Arvind Bedekar said that apart from the water route, there is only one route to reach Jhandana, but using this route involves walking about five kilometres. He said that the villagers have demanded from the administration to build a 3.5 kilometer long metalled road. Bedekar said, ‘The metalled road that the villagers are demanding passes through forest land.
We have written a letter to the Forest Department for permission to build the road. As soon as we get this approval, we will start building the concrete road in Jhandana. He said that the administration keeps a motor boat ready to take the villagers to the nearest hospital in case of emergency.
