The Hindu : Karnataka News : Over 650 voters from village boycott poll

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 14, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Over 650 voters from village boycott poll

By Our Special Correspondent

GULBARGA, OCT. 13. The people of Dhammur village which was submerged in the backwaters of the Gandorinala Medium Irrigation Project in Gulbarga district, who were accommodated at a rehabilitation centre on Gulbarga-Bidar National Highway, today refused to vote in the Bidar Lok Sabha byelection. They were protesting against the shifting of the polling station from the Government Primary School at the rehabilitation centre to another school near Mahagaon Cross, about 1 km away.

The more than 650 voters among the evacuees found that the polling station at the rehabilitation centre was shifted at the last minute to another school, and they were not told why the decision was taken.

Chandappa Molkeri, a retired schoolteacher who spoke on behalf of the evacuees, said that in the general elections, the election authorities had set up a polling station in the Government Primary School.

The Assistant Commissioner, R.K. Begar, who is the Election Commission observer for the implementation of the model code of conduct in the Kamalapur Assembly segment of the Bidar Lok Sabha Constituency, visited the rehabilitation centre and appealed to the voters to exercise their franchise. However, the voters demanded that he tell them why the polling station was shifted. They said that even the election officials were not aware of the shifting of the polling station and had camped at the Government Primary School on Tuesday night. Only on Wednesday morning were the officials informed, they said. Mr. Begar said it was not possible to change the decision as polling had begun.

Mr. Molkeri said that although 200 of the 250 families of the Dhammur village had shifted to the rehabilitation centre in Gulbarga taluk two years ago, the rehabilitation centre was under the administrative jurisdiction of Aland taluk, as Dhammur was in Aland. The foodgrains for the ration shops at the rehabilitation centre and those for the midday meal scheme implemented in the Government Primary School were brought from Aland. The people of the rehabilitation centre had to approach the Aland Tahsildar office or the zilla panchayat office for assistance, he added.

`A baseless rumour'

Our Bidar Staff Correspondent reports:

The Returning Officer and Deputy Commissioner, T.K. Anil Kumar, has said that there was no boycott of polls in Dhammur. ``It is a baseless rumour. The polling booth was not shifted from the village, and reports of a protest against the shifting of the booth are false. Of the 1,700 voters in the booth, over 600 exercised their franchise,'' a release from the Returning Officer said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka

News Update

Stories in this Section