As campaigning for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls seeks voter attention, women in the Hanga panchayat of Badarwah hills are saying: ‘enough.’
Scoresof women in a tiny corner of this remote mountainous area have sparked amovement “No Road, No Vote”.
Hanga is a part of the Udhampur-Doda constituency scheduledto go for polling on April 18. The seat in the last Lok Sabha was representedby Jitendra Singh of BJP.
About 150 women took out a procession holding placards with”No Road, No Vote” written on them, demanding the 6-km Domail-Hanga road berepaired and black-topped before they allow any politician to campaign in thearea.
“We have been cheated and duped of our right bysuccessive governments for last six decades. Enough is enough, now we havedecided that we would neither vote nor will we allow any political leader tocampaign in our area,” said Kamla Devi, sarpanch of Hanga Panchayat.
“Our Panchayat remains most underdeveloped only becausewe have been kept devoid of proper road, resulting in very low literacy rateespecially among girls. Under these circumstances ‘Beti padhao, Beti bachao’slogan seems to be a cruel joke with us,” Sarpanch added, referring to thecentral government scheme for girls’ education.
The women have many other reasons for their anger.
“Two new born babies died as ambulance could not reachhere because of the dilapidated condition of the road and even I lost my fatherin law last month on way to hospital,” said Anu Devi, ASHA worker of HangaPanchayat.
The road also has a historical significance, being the firstlink road in Chenab valley laid by the forest department in 1960 for extractionand transportation of timber from the forests of the area. But it has been in ashambles for long.
The fiery women of Hanga Panchayat have vowed to stop pollcampaigning of political parties in their area until a permanent solution totheir problem was found.
Men in the area have started rallying behind the protestingwomen.
“We fully endorse the decision taken by the femalebrigade and we are ready to join the movement as we have suffered a lot andhave been pushed to corner by successive regimes,” said Rattan Chand,former sarpanch of Hanga.
Superintendent Engineer R&B Doda, Nasir Goni said,”I was not aware of the problem and will ask Executive Engineer Bhadarwahto immediately submit a report about the inordinate delay in maintenance of thesaid road.”
“This is a very serious issue and a cause of concern aswe are bound to maintain the roads. If no contractor is interested to submit theirbid to lay macadam on the said road, we have the provision to do itourselves,” Goni added.