Amethi, April 8:Thousands of villagers in the Gandhi pocket borough of Amethi have decided to boycott the May 6 Lok Sabha election, in potentially worrying news for sitting MP Rahul Gandhi, who won by a margin of over a lakh in the 2014 polls.
“We have had enough of false assurances,” says 39-year-old Binu Khan, an Amethi villager, as he points to an unmanned railway crossing running through the heart of Amethi city.
The crossing that lies between a cluster of 20 villages on the one side and Amethi urban hub on the other has caused several avoidable accidents over the past three decades, many of these fatal.Locals say their demand for an under-bridge at the location has gone unheeded for years and they have now decided to register a strong protest by either not voting or at best pressing the NOTA button.
Only late last year, local Congress leader Narendra Mishra’s sister-in-law was run over by a speeding train at this crossing. Yet nothing moved.“Eighty per cent of the villagers have decided to boycott the election,” says local Shailendra Nath Mishra.
Thirteen villages have made up their mind and put up poll boycott banners all over their residential areas to send a message of solidarity.
The move, says Raj Karan Saroj, a resident of Chachkapur village, flows from a sense of betrayal by local MP Rahul Gandhi who has been representing them for three terms.
“Even in 2014, this was a burning issue in Amethi. We flagged it to Rahul and he promised us an under-bridge. A board came up here on the eve of the 2014 general election saying Rahul had released Rs 2 crore for the project. We voted last time in the hope of a safer future but our trust was betrayed. That board vanished after the election. Recently, when Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi came here their vehicle came to the point of the crossing and then turned. We kept looking around in the hope that they will get down and see the crossing where our children risk their lives daily to attend school and college in Amethi city,” a livid Saroj says.
Majority of education and health services being in Amethi town, villagers of this Lok Sabha constituency and their children have to cross over the rail line all the time to avail themselves of basic urban facilities.
Importantly, villagers have risen above politics to call for a boycott of poll and even local BJP leaders have joined the call, which means they won’t vote for even Rahul’s rival Smriti Irani.
“This is not a political issue against Rahul alone. He didn’t do anything but equally our BJP leaders also didn’t help. I personally petitioned BJP’s sitting Amethi MLA Garima Singh and even Irani. No one did anything. Now our decision is clear—no under-bridge, no vote. This is the least when our wives spend restless days waiting for kids to return home, hoping they are safe,” says Surender Singh, a local booth president of the BJP.
Among Amethi villages that have given the boycott call are Chachkapur, Raydepur, Birhampur, Bhusathri, Gangoli, Bisheshganj, Bankatura, Kendra and Subrdar ka purva.
One village comprises over 5,000 people which could take the numbers looking at a boycott of Amethi election to around 65,000.
Villagers say that all over Amethi Lok Sabha segment there are around a dozen unmanned rail crossings in need of either an over-bridge or under-bridge.
