The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : ‘I will not go to my village to vote’

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Wednesday, May 07, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

‘I will not go to my village to vote’

Bageshree S.

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Elections make little sense to many construction workers from different parts of the State working in Bangalore.

Bangalore: Tuesday was a particularly busy day for Kasturamma at the construction site of a hostel inside the Maharani’s College campus on Palace Road. She and other construction workers were being instructed to remove all the debris so that jeeps and cars of election officers could go up and down the lane leading to the college. The college is an all-important place now because it is the counting centre.

As irony would have it, Kasturamma has decided to have nothing to do with the elections this year. “My name is on the rolls in my village Madikeri near Kushatagi (Koppal district). But none of us are going there to vote, though dodda gowdru (village chief) called us and told us to come,” says Kasturamma, as she goes about her work.

“Last elections we went and had to borrow Rs. 2,000 to come back to Bangalore,” she narrates. A candidate had promised to meet their travel expenses, but the money was pocketed by some middleman, she says. “This time we will have to borrow to even go to our village because we have hardly been able to save over the last few months. With all prices going up, what we earn is just enough to feed the family. It will cost Rs. 500 each to go back to the village,” she adds.

Indifference

While this is the immediate reason for her indifference, what has really turned her cynical is the fact that consecutive governments have done little to alleviate her and her family’s plight. Though her family has a two-acre plot in the village where they grew sajje (millet), successive droughts have rendered it barren, compelling them to come to Bangalore seeking work. “The rich people in our village have got sastha card (BPL card) and we have got none. We did not even get a janata house,” adds her husband, Muttappa.

The last thing she wants to do with this hard earned money is to spend it on travelling back to her village to cast her vote.

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Karnataka