India Tomorrow
AHMEDABAD—Voters in Gujarat bypolls for eight assembly seats are asking the candidates for irrigation water, road and other developmental works, not the Ram Temple, Article 370 and the CAA.
BJP candidate for Morbi assembly bypoll Brijesh Merja and those campaigning in his support are facing this question in villages. Villagers are not ready to listen to his speeches saying he “resigned from his position as Congress MLA” for “nationalism and Ram Temple” issues espoused by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Villagers are repeatedly asking him to speak about the Narmada water for irrigation and the condition of roads in rural areas.
Merja is among eight Congress MLAs who had resigned in June this year ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections. Five of them-Brijesh Merja, Akshay Patel, Jitu Chaudhary, JV Kakadiya and Pradyumansinh Jadeja- later on, joined the BJP and are now contesting the bypoll on BJP ticket. Bypolls are being held for all these eight assembly seats. The polling for the eight seats will be held on November 3. Though the results of the elections will not affect the BJP as it is already in huge majority in the state assembly, the questions being asked by the voters during campaigning indicate that the people were fed up with emotional slogans of the saffron party and were more interested in developmental works than divisive issues raised by the party.
Media reports say that After Merja addressed a meeting at Nava Sadulka village in Morbi assembly constituency, farmer Vijay Panchotiya told him that he was not seen in the area every since he got elected in 2017 and was coming to villages only when he is facing bypoll.
“You had promised us Narmada water in 2017 elections but you did nothing. It was only with our own efforts that we got irrigation water for our Rabi crops in December last year. You get us Narmada water otherwise villagers will not support you”, another farmer Dinesh Panchamiya told the BJP candidate.
When BJP’s Morbi district general secretary Hiren Pathak was addressing villagers in a Ram Temple, he told them BJP had kept its promise of constructing Ram Temple, villagers interrupted him and told him, “We(villagers) welcome the Supreme Court judgement on Ram Temple but you should talk about Narmada water for our fields”. Morbi is among Gujarat’s cotton growing area and it has no perennial source of irrigation. Farmers depend on irrigation water mainly from the Narmada main canal. If water is not released in the canal on time, there are chances of drying up of the crops. Farms also use tube well water for irrigation but it is very costly. Moreover, every farmer cannot afford to installed tubewell because of the high cost involved in it.
In Krushnagar village, Sarpanch Hari Khimaniya told Merja about poor condition of road in the constituency. He told him that the condition of the road connecting NH 29 had worsened in the last five years and he did not take trouble to visit villages after getting elected in 2017. Khimaniya also complained that his village was not getting Narmada water.
In Gungan village, the BJP candidate was asked about the developmental work the BJP government had done in the area. The 75-year-old former sarpanch Tembha Jadeja pointed his fingers towards the poor condition of the road connecting his village.
BJP candidates in other constituencies like Kaprada, who are all defectors from the Congress, are being asked to explain as to how much they did gain by joining the BJP and leaving the Congress. They are telling them that they were elected by the voters on Congress ticket and they, later on resigned, to join the BJP. “Why should people vote them again because there is no guarantee that they will remain loyal to their party and there are chances that they may again switch parties for personal benefits”, Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi quoted voters putting such questions to the turncoats.
