Polling in villages affected by the Posco steel project was peaceful with no untoward incident as both the project supporters and opponents turned up to choose their representatives.
This year’s election for this region was significant from the point that polling booths were set up in Dhinkia, the epicentre of anti-Posco agitation, after a gap of seven years.
In 2009, the villagers of Dhinkia and Gobindpur could not participate in the voting process as the polling stations were located few kilometres from their villages. With most of the villagers facing charges of involvement in Posco project related violence, they didn’t venture out from the safe confines of their villages to exercise their franchise fearing arrest.
However, today the residents of these two project affected villages in Jagatsinghpur district saw people casting votes without any security arrangement contrary to the last panchayat elections when fear had gripped the voters, forcing the district administration to cancel polling in the two villages.
Even the 52 ostracised families of Dhinkia voted after a gap of seven years. These families had been accommodated at the Posco transit colony and were denied entry to Dhinkia.
“The polling process in Dhinkia and Gobindpur has been completed peacefully. Even, the 52 families who were humiliated by anti-Posco activists have given their vote at Dhinkia. The situation in Dhinkia and Gobindpur is very normal and the administration is mulling to resettle these 52 families in their native village,” said Jagatsinghpur collector Satya Kumar Mallick.
Interestingly, anti-Posco leader Abhaya Sahu purportedly responsible for ostracising these 52 families, had apologised to them and sought their vote in favour of his son Abhijit Sahu, a contestant from the Balikuda assembly seat on a CPI ticket.
