Karnataka - Belgaum   

Belgaum voter disillusioned

Belgaum: “We have lost faith in all the parties and their leaders or MLAs as our repeated pleas to provide some proper sewage and drainage system in the last couple of years fell on deaf ears,” says 60-year-old Safeela Jamadar staying in small house on Nizamuddin Galli in Gandhinagar locality falling under Belgaum North Assembly Constituency.

She feels like shouting at politicians but still restrains to be courteous with the newsmen. She says the open sewage and dirty mini lagoons formed out of filth and wastes in the low-lying areas of Gandhinagar raise a stink. The mosquito menace is rampant and the open sewers are a health hazard.

“We keep falling sick, our children and grandchildren often are taken ill. We are helpless. The MLAs, past and prospective, who live in palatial bungalows, do not feel for us. After all, they come once in five years to seek votes. After that, we have to keep knocking on their doors to solve our problems,” she says.

So far, she has not decided to whom she or her family would vote for. Ironically, every citizen enjoys the right to vote, she is among all those women whose voting pattern is decided by their husband.

“I have not thought of it yet. Normally my husband decides whom to vote and his decision goes by the stand taken by the community living in the locality,” when asked for her choice.

Inamdar brothers, Chand and Sameer, say the former Congress MLA Ramesh L. Kudachi, who has quit the party after he was denied the ticket and now once again contesting as Janata Dal (Secular) candidate from here (Belgaum North) had promised to upgrade the Nizamuddin Galli when he had come asking for votes in the 2004 elections. He did not turn up after getting elected. “We are waiting for him now to ask him about the forgotten promises,” they say. When asked to some other voters about their choice, they said though Mr. Sait belongs to the “elite” and has little communication with a majority of Muslims, they have little choice as it was for the first time that the Congress had fielded a Muslim candidate in this constituency.

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