No road, No vote: Residents of remote Uttarakhand village threaten to boycott LS polls

GOPESHWAR: Natives of Dumak, a remote village near Joshimath in Uttarakhand, said they will boycott the Lok Sabha polls if work on the construction of a long-awaited road project linking the village to district headquarters does not begin immediately. The villagers staged a rally in Joshimath on Wednesday holding banners which read "Don't embarrass us by asking for votes," "Enter village only after making a road," and "No road, No vote."

Elections to the five Lok Sabha seats in Uttarakhand are slated to be held in the first phase on April 19.

"We are firm on continuing with our movement till the work starts. If the construction work does not start before April 19, we will boycott the polls," said Prem Singh Sanwal, the convenor of the committee spearheading the protest.


On March 29, the Joshimath SDM spoke to the agitators about the issue but no action was taken, Sanwal said.

Villagers have been demanding the construction of the Sainji-Lagga-Maikot-Bemru-Dumak-Kalgoth motor road, which has been pending for decades.

Dumak residents had decided to boycott the 2019 Lok Sabha elections as well, but a week before the polling day, the road department sent machines for the construction, Sanwal said.

But once the polling was over, the machines were withdrawn, he said.

One of the remotest villages in Chamoli district, Dumak has the second highest polling booth in the state situated at a height of around 10,000 feet.

Liwadi and Osla in Uttarkashi district are on a slightly higher altitude.

The village falls in the Badrinath Assembly segment, which is part of the Garhwal (Pauri) Lok Sabha constituency.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded the party's national media in-charge Anil Baluni from the seat. He takes on former state Congress president Ganesh Godiyal.