The villagers in Rajouri’s Kote Charwal and Poonch’s Hill Kaka area on Tuesday voted in the second phase of District Development Council elections for basic amenities in the areas.
Abdul Aziz, a panchayat representative of Kote Charwal panchayat halqa of Rajouri, said that their area is the most far flung area of Rajouri district.
“Our tehsil is Khawas and a person from our area has to walk for two days to reach Khawas tehsil headquarter, there is not even a single health institution in the entire area,” said Aziz.
“People from our area have always voted in healthy numbers but not even a single representative from panchayat, legislation or parliament level ever bothered to visit the area after the poll campaign,” the locals said, ruing unavailability of basic needs including electricity, water supply and roads.
Till 2014-15 assembly elections, election staff used to reach Kote Charwal polling station through helicopters of army and only after construction of a road in 2016, polling staff reach Gai Bass on a vehicle from where they walk for eight hours to reach Kote Charwal.
Villagers in the Hill Kaka area also rued the unavailability of basic amenities.
“We have to walk for one day to reach Marha which is the nearest road from Hill Kaka,” said locals of the area.
Women prefer early morning voting in Rajouri
The female voters in various villages of Rajouri’s Moughla DDC constituency on Tuesday preferred early morning voting as long queues of female voters were seen outside polling stations in the morning hours.
“Most of the village women, especially housewives, were seen outside polling stations early in the morning. After 10 am, most of the voters in queues outside polling stations were males,” a polling official from Moughla Higher Secondary polling station said.
He added that the majority of the female votes were polled before 10 am which was a unique trend seen in the area.
“We have plenty of household works like preparation of meals for which we preferred early morning voting,” said Shashi Bala, a 52 year old woman standing at Moughla polling station at 07:30 am.
“Although we can vote in noon hours also but early morning voting facilitates us to have plenty of time in noon to clear household chores,” another woman, Anju Bala, said.